MA S TER 
NEGA  TIVE 

NO.  92-80498-16 


MICROFILMED  1992 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES/NEW  YORK 


as  part  of  the  ^ 

"Foundations  of  Western  Civilization  Preservation  Project 


Funded  by  the 
NATIONAL  ENDOWMENT  FOR  THE  HUMANITIES 


Reproductions  may  not  be  made  without  permission  from 

Columbia  University  Library 


COPYRIGHT  STATEMENT 

The  copyright  law  of  the  United  States  ~  Title  17,  United 
States  Code  —  concerns  the  making  of  photocopies  or  other 
reproductions  of  copyrighted  material... 

Columbia  University  Library  reserves  the  right  to  refuse  to 
accept  a  copy  order  if,  in  its  judgement,  fulfilment  of  the  order 
would  involve  violation  of  the  copyright  law. 


AUTHOR: 


BICKFORD,  JOHN  DEAN 


TITLE: 


SOLILOQUY  IN  ANCIENT 

COMEDY 

PLACE* 

PRINCETON,  N.J. 

DA  TE : 

[1 922] 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 


Master  Negative  if 


\» 


BIBLIOGRAPHIC  MICROFORM  TARGET 


Restrictions  on  Use: 


Original  Material  as 

FIN  PN  blCKFORD  lUI!) 

+ 

ID:NYCG9?-BiOiS3 
CC:966S      t^L  I  lain 


Filmed  -  Existing  Bibliographic  Record 

rw  50L1LUUUY  -  Cluster  1  or  1  -  Record  added  today 


CP:n  ji) 

PC:s 

MMI): 

OiO 

040 

OSO 

100 


24  b 


0 
1 
10 


260 
300 
502 

600  iO 
65(1   0 
6  50   0 
LUU 
QD 


L :  enq 
PD:19^2 
OK: 
22013356 
NNC;--cNN(: 

PA3028M>. 
(n'ckf ot  <i, 
Sol  i  loquy 
Pr  i  lice  ton 
5  p.  ]  .  , 
TiK^sif;  (P 
P  J  ai.itus, 
L  n  t.  i  1 1  ci  I  a 
(U  CM'k  <li  a 
Kl  JN 

02-12-92 


OCF 

INT 


/ 


RFYP 
CSC 
QPC 
REP 


a 
c 


ST:p 

MOD: 
BIO: 
CP1:0 


\m 


RR: 


FRN 
3  MR 
FlC 
FSI 
COL 


MS:         EL:u  AO 

ATC:  UD 

0  CON: 

0             ILC:  II 

EML:  GF:N 


02-12-92 
02-12-92 


0 


BSfc 


B5 

Joliri    Dean,  ^d  1891- 

111    ancient   coiiiedy|-h|.  inicrof  or  m  J  ,rcby   John    Dean    BicK 
,    N.J.  ,'rb]\\e   author  :t^c|:  1922  I 
65   (i.rC23   cm. 

P.    D.  )--Pi  inceton    University,    1921- 
ritus  MacciuSr'xCr  i  ticism  and   interpretation 
ifia    (  Comedy  )rxHistory   and   criticism 
ma    ( Comedy ) txHi story    and   criticism 


ford 


TECHNICAL  MICROFORM  DATA 


REDUCTION     RATIO:       //  ^ 


ID     IID 


FILM     SIZE: 

IMAGE  PLACEMENT:    lA 

DATE     FILMED: qZ/JSi 

FILMED  BY:    RESEARCFI  PL/bLICATIONS.  INC  WOODDRIDGE,  CT 


INITIALS 


^. 


^, 


^^c 


r 


Association  for  Information  and  image  lAanagement 

1 1 00  Wayne  Avenue.  Suite  1 1 00 
Silver  Spring.  Maryland  20910 

301/587-8202 


Centimeter 

12        3        4 

iiiiliiiiiiiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiilii 


ijj 


rTT 


Inches 


MM   I 


1 


5 

iliiiil 


9        10       11       12       13       14       15    mm 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiili'iili'iiliiiiliiiiliiii 


T 


7        8 

liiiiliiiil 


^M 


M^l 


1.0 


I.I 


1.25 


■  56     13.2 


Hi 


3.6 


4.0 


1.4 


IM 


T 


1 


I 


2.5 


2.2 


2.0 


1.8 


1.6 


I 


MfiNUFflCTURED   TO   RUM   STflNDfiRDS 
BY   APPLIED   IMPGE,    INC. 


SOLILOQUY  IN  ANCIENT  COMEDY 


BY 


JOHN  DEAN  BICKFORD 


A   DISSERTATION  PRESENTED  TO  THE  FACULTY  OF   PRINCETON 

University  in  Candidacy  for  the  degree  of 

DOCTOR  of  philosophy. 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE  AUTHOR 
PRINCETON,   N.  J. 


\^A^ 


SOLILOQUY  IN  ANCIENT  COMEDY 


BY 


JOHN  DEAN  BICKFORD 


A   DISSERTATION  PRESENTED  TO  THE  FACULTY  OF  PRINCETON 

University  in  Candidacy  for  the  degree  of 
DOCTOR  of  Philosophy. 


published  by  the  author 
Princeton,  N.  J. 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  DEPARTMENT  OF  CLASSICS 

May,  1920 

Published  February,  1922 


PRESS  OF 

THE  NEW  ERA  PRINTING  COMPANY 

LANCASTER,  PA. 


patri  meo 

SINE  QUO   FORSITAN   NE   HOC  TANTULUM 
QUIDEM   OPUS  CONFECTUM   ESSET 


PREFACE. 


The  ouroose  of  this  study  was  to  investigate  a  particular 
toj  in^rrent  :o.edy,  of  perhaps  some  ^n-nsic  interest  a^^^^ 
to  draw  from  this  investigation  whatever  conclusions  't  seemed 
';oss  bl^  to  reach  as  to  the  development  of  comedy,  and  o  some 
extent  of  drama  as  a  whole,  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans. 

For  sleesting  the  topic  and  for  continual  aid  and  encourage- 
Jnt  in  the  wSrk  the  author  acknowledges  his  obligation  to 
Prof  Frank  Frost  Abbott,  and  for  several  valuable  suggestions 
Txpresses  his  thanks  also  to  Prof.  Edward  Capps,  both  of  Prin- 

ceton  University.  . 

Citations  are  made  from  the  followmg  texts. 


Plautus 

Terence 

Menander 

Aristophanes 

Comic  fragments 

Aeschylus 

Sophocles 

Euripides 


Lindsay 

Fleckeisen 

Korte 

Bergk 

Kock 

Weil 

Dindorf 

Nauck 


Oxford 
Teubner 


(( 
u 
a 
n 
u 


1903 
1898 

I9I2 
1907 

I880-I888 

1907 

1887 

1895 


Culver  Military  Academy, 
Culver,  Indiana, 
June,  192 1. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


Introduction ""^^^ 

I.    The  Types  of  Soliloquy 

II.     The  Function  of  the  Soliloquy  in  the  Structure  * .'  [ ',     i6 

III.  The  Relation  between  Latin  and  New  Greek  Comedy 

in  Respect  to  Soliloquy jg 

IV.  The  Relation  between  the  Chorus  and  the  Soliloquy    28 
V.    The  Causes  of  the  Development  of  the  Structurally    35 

Useful  Soliloquy 

VI.    The  Causes  of  the  Development  of  the  Structurally    42 
Useless  Soliloquy 

JM'    ^"^^''^^^^^"^"^^so"  the  Development  of 'soliloquy  48 

VUL    The  Relation  between  Soliloquy  and  Meter  .  .  si 

Appendix 

53 


THE  SOLILOQUY  IN  ANCIENT  COMEDY 


INTRODUCTION. 

The  natural  starting-point  for  any  study  of  ancient  comedy 
as  a  whole  lies  in  the  plays  of  Plautus.  They  constitute  the 
largest  extant  group  of  complete  Greek  or  Latin  comedies,  and 
they  are  the  only  large  group  representing  New  Comedy,  around 
which,  as  the  culmination  of  the  development  of  Greek  comedy, 
and  in  some  sense  of  the  entire  Greek  drama,  and  as  that  type 
of  ancient  comedy  that  has  influenced  modern  drama  most 
largely,  our  interest  naturally  centers.  Especially  for  the  subject 
of  this  study,  moreover,  it  will  soon  appear  that  we  are  right  in 
beginning  with  Plautus  rather  than  with  Aristophanes,  and  in 
general,  so  far  as  concerns  the  development  of  soliloquy,  in 
working  backward  rather  than  forward. 

We  shall  have  to  consider  four  main  topics:  first,  the  types  of 
soliloquy;  second,  the  function  of  the  soliloquy  in  the  structure 
of  the  plays ;  third,  the  relation  of  the  soliloquy  in  Roman  comedy 
to  the  soliloquy  in  new  Greek  comedy.     For  the  first  topic  the 
evidence   of   Menander  and   the   comic   fragments   is   perhaps 
sufficient  for  Greek  comedy,  but  for  the  second  it  is  not.    So 
long  as  we  have  not  extant  a  considerable  number  of  plays  of 
New  Comedy  complete,  the  evidence  of  the  extant  parts  of 
Menander's    'ETrtrpcTrovres,    UepLKeLpofievrj    and    Sa/xta,    valuable 
though  it  is,  is  yet  inadequate  enough  to  need  confirmation  by 
argument  and  demonstration  from  Latin  comedy.     This  last 
topic,  finally,  will  lead  naturally  to  a  fourth,  i.e.,  the  causes  of 
the  development  of  soliloquy  in  Greek  comedy  from  Old  to  New. 
There  is  one   preliminary  question   of  importance  to  be  an- 
swered ;  just  what  is  here  meant  by  soliloquy?     In  the  first  place, 
a  soliloquy  must  be  spoken  by  a  character  in  the  play:  by  this 
criterion  the  ordinary  prologue  {e.g.,  of  the  Captivi)  is  excluded, 
likewise  the  prologue  by  a  divinity  (e.g.,  of  the  Aulularia  and 
Cistellaria),  while  the  prologues  of  the  Mercator  and  the  Miles 


The  Soliloquy  ln  Ancient  Comedy. 


are  included.  In  the  second  place,  a  soliloquy  must  be  spoken 
by  a  character  who  either  believes  himself  to  be  alone  on  the 
stage,  or  deliberately  ignores  the  presence  of  other  characters. 
The  introduction  of  this  second  variety  of  soliloquy  into  comedy 
can  be  traced  back  to  the  dramatic  necessity  in  tragedy  of  repre- 
senting a  character  as  occasionally  speaking  in  disregard  of  the 
presence  of  the  chorus.  There,  however,  the  dramatic  resem- 
blance ceases,  for  in  comedy  the  soliloquy,  whether,  as  occasion- 
ally, it  be  addressed  by  the  character  directly  to  himself,  as  in 
Trin.  1008-1023,  or  specifically  to  the  audience,  as  in  Stich.  673- 
682,  or  whether,  as  most  commonly,  it  be  left  without  definite  ad- 
dress, is  in  reality  always  spoken  for  the  benefit  of  the  audience. 
(But  here  we  are  anticipating.)  Even  this  second  criterion 
proves  in  practice  impossible  always  to  apply  strictly,  for  there 
are  some  clear  cases  of  soliloquy  where  the  speaker  ignores,  not 
the  presence  of  another  character,  who  may  even  be  made  the 
subject  of  his  soliloquy,  but  only  the  possibility  of  entering  into 
conversation  with  him.^  The  exact  opposite  of  the  soliloquy 
spoken  by  a  character  aware  of  another's  presence  is  found  in 
the  aside,  which  specifically  recognizes  the  other's  presence  and, 
while  indeed  no  part  of  the  dialogue  itself,  not  only  does  not 
ignore  the  possibility  of  conversation  but  usually  leads  directly 
to  a  dialogue  following.  So,  for  example,  Sosia's  soliloquy  in 
Amph.  153  ff  ends  at  line  292,  where  he  discovers  Mercury's 
presence,  although  neither  speaks  to  the  other  until  line  341. 
Between  many  soliloquies  and  many  speeches  in  dialogue  ad- 
dressed to  a  mere  interlocutor  there  is  of  course  no  essential 
difference.  But  there  is  a  technical  difference,  and,  if  only  to 
fix  some  limit  for  this  study,  it  seemed  best  to  insist  upon  this 
distinction,  especially  since  to  take  dialogues  of  this  sort  into 
consideration  would  add  nothing  whatever  to  the  validity  or 
variety  of  our  conclusions. 

1  E.g.,  Plaut.  Amph.  1005-1008,  Menander  'Ewir.  359  ff. 


I.    THE  TYPES  OF  SOLILOQUY. 


By  classification  of  soliloquies  according  to  type  we  mean 
classification  according  to  content.  There  are,  first,  two  solilo- 
quies that  take  the  place  of  the  technical  prologue,  Merc,  i-iio, 
spoken  by  adulescens  Charinus,  and  Mil.  79-i55»  spoken  by  the 
slave  Palaestrio;  the  latter  differs  scarcely  at  all,  save  in  position, 
from  the  ordinary  prologue,  the  former  only  in  that  it  combines 
with  the  technical  prologue  a  monologue  in  character.  The 
consideration  of  these  two  soliloquies  properly  belongs,  however, 
to  the  subject  of  the  Plautine  prologue;  they  are  amply  discussed 
by  Leo^  and  we  shall  have  occasion  to  say  little  more  about  them. 
The  scanty  remains  of  Menander  furnish  no  parallel  for  such  a 
prologue  by  a  character,  although  the  monologue  by  " kyvoia  in 
nepu.  1-51  corresponds  to  Mil.  79-155  in  position,  and  still 
more  closely  to  the  speech  of  Auxilium  in  Cist.  149  ff. 

In  the  second  place,  soliloquies  are  often  used  in  the  wpoXoyos^ 
for  exposition :  so,  for  example,  the  long  soliloquies  spoken  by  a 
slave  in  Amph.  153-292,  by  lena  in  Cist.  120-148,  by  mulier  in 
Rud.  185-219,  by  adulescens  in  True.  22-94.  This  type  again  is 
fully  treated  by  Leo^  and  will  require  little  further  space  in  the 
present  discussion.  The  only  example  of  this  type  of  soliloquy 
to  be  found  in  Menander  is  the  fragment  of  the  TecopTos;  the 
beginnings  of  all  the  other  plays  except  the  Hero  are  lost,^ 
while  the  extant  fragment  of  the  irpoKoyos  of  that  play  consists 
entirely   of   dialogue,    in    which    one    character    is    a   Trpoacairov 

irpOTaKTLKOV, 

Thirdly,  the  soliloquy  is  similarly  used  for  exposition — ^what 
we  may  better  call  development  or  explanation  of  the  plot — 

«  Plautinische  Forschungen  (Berlin,  1895),  pp.  194  ff. 

» We  use  throughout  the  Greek  word  to  denote  the  prologue  in  the  Greek 
sense,  reserving  the  term  prologue  for  the  technical  prologue  as  in  Latin  comedy. 
In  this  sense  it  corresponds  to  the  term  exposition  as  used  of  Latin  comedy  or 
modern  drama.  Leo  uses  der  Prolog  in  both  senses,  but  chiefly  in  this  latter 
sense;  see  Plaut.  Forsch.  pp.  171  ff. 

*  Plaut.  Forsch.  pp.  176  ff. 

*  See  footnote  70. 

3 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


throughout  the  play.  Men.  446  ff  helps  to  get  the  action  under 
way  by  revealing  to  the  audience  how  the  parasite  lost  track  of 
his  proper  Menaechmus;  Cas.  759  fif  helps  to  keep  it  moving  by 
revealing  how  the  slave  Chalinus  is  being  rigged  up  in  the  house 
by  the  women  to  pose  as  Olympio's  bride;  Amph.  1053  ff  assists 
the  denouement  by  revealing  the  confusion  of  identity  between 
Jupiter  and  Amphitruo.  Similar  examples  are  to  be  found  in 
Menander  at  the  beginning  of  the  action  and  in  the  development.* 
Such  soliloquies  usually  recount  action  recently  past,  as  in  the 
examples  just  mentioned  from  the  Menaechmi  and  the  Amphi- 
truo, but  may  also  serve  to  make  clear  contemporaneous  action,  as 
in  the  example  from  the  Casina.  The  relation  between  soliloquies 
of  this  type  and  the  narratives  of  the  messengers  in  tragedy  is 
plain  enough;  it  is  well  illustrated  by  Sceparnio's  running  com- 
mentary on  the  struggles  of  the  ship-wrecked  women  in  Rud. 
162  ff,  which  is  neither  a  conventional  narrative,  dealing  as  it 
does  with  contemporaneous  action,  nor  a  conventional  soliloquy, 
being  dramatically  motivated  as  a  report  to  Daemones,  who  is 

standing  by. 

In  the  fourth  place,  there  is  a  type  that  may  be  called  the 
soliloquy  of  announcement.  It  is  much  like  the  soliloquy  of 
development,  except  that  it  is  designed  to  make  clear  not  what 
has  happened  or  is  happening  off  stage,  but  what  is  about  to 
happen,  whether  off  stage,  as  in  the  case  of  Rud.  440  ff,^  or  on 
stage,  as  in  the  case  of  Mercury's  announcement  in  Amph.  463  ff 
and  Jupiter's  id.  861  ff.  Both  these  last  are  good  examples  of 
the  commonest  kind  of  announcements,  those  especially  necessi- 
tated by  confusions  of  identity  in  the  plot  that  contribute  towards 
the  avayvupLcns.  Sometimes,  on  the  contrary,  such  a  soliloquy 
merely  indicates  in  general  the  course  that  the  character  is 
going  to  pursue,  as  when  Diniarchus  in  True.  434  ff  declares  his 
intention  to  remain  faithful  to  his  faithless  mistress.    The  only 

«  E.g.,  Sa/x.  1-64  and  llepu.  276  flf;  Sa^.  204  ff  respectively. 

'  Lines  442-453  announce  that  Labrax  and  Charmides  have  reached  land, 
lines  454-457  that  the  two  women  will  take  refuge  at  the  altar  within  before 
they  can  reach  the  temple.  At  line  485  Labrax  and  Charmides  enter  and 
hold  the  stage  until  line  558,  when  Sceparnio  enters  with  a  short  soliloquy  of 
development  (559-562)  to  show  that  the  action  announced  in  lines  454""457 
has  been  carried  out. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy.  5 

examples  of  this  type  from  Menander «  indeed  both  verge  on  the 
soliloquy  of  deliberation,  for  not  only  is  the  announcement  in 
both  general  and  somewhat  vague,  but  in  neither  case  is  the 
course  of  action  suggested  actually  carried  out.^ 

The  fifth  type  is  the  soliloquy  of  mere  comment,  which  some- 
what resembles  the  third  type,  but  differs  in  that  it  deals  either 
with  action  on  stage  that  already  is  or  is  becoming  perfectly 
plain  without  it,  or  with  action  off  stage  that  has  already  been 
made  plain  by  some  other  means.     It  is  numerically  the  com- 
monest type.^o     It  is  important  to  distinguish   this  from  the 
third  type.     To  take  as  an  example  the  soliloquy  in  Capt.  516  ff : 
in  lines  516-517  Tyndarus  remarks  that  he  is  in  a  bad  situation, 
in  lines  518-526  that  he  sees  no  hope  of  escaping  from  it,  all  of 
which  we  know  without  his  telling  us;   in  lines  527-528  he  tells 
us,  what  we  already  know  from  Hegio's  remark  in  lines  509  ff , 
that  Aristophontes  is  sure  to  recognize  him  as  an  impostor,  while 
in  lines  529-531  he  again  bewails  his  wretched  plight.     Plainly, 
the  action  is  not  in  the  least  advanced  by  such  a  soliloquy,  as  it 
is  by  soliloquies  of  exposition,  nor  do  we  learn  anything  new 
about  what  is  going  to  happen,  as  we  do  from  soliloquies  of 
announcement.     An  extreme  example  of  this  type  of  soliloquy 
occurs  in  Mil.  200-215,  where  Periplectomenus  says  in  line  200 
ego  hinc  abscessero  abs  te  hue  interim,  and  then,  turning,  with 
illuc  sis  vide,   to  the  audience,   describes   Palaestrio's   actions 
during  his  mental  gestation:   it  is  clear  that  Palaestrio  does  not 
even  withdraw  into  the  angiportus,  and  that  most  if  not  all  of  the 
action  to  which  Periplectomenus  calls  attention  must  have  been 
already  plain  to  the  audience.^^ 

«2aM.  271  ff  and  'Ettit.  522  flF. 

9  In  the  case  of  SaM.  271  ff  Moschion's  plan  to  pretend  flight  seems  to  be 
forestalled,  at  least  so  far  as  we  can  tell  from  the  extant  part  of  the  play  that 
follows  his  soliloquy.  Likewise  in  the  scene  in  the  'ETrtTpeTrot/res  (582  ff) 
where  Smicrines  finally  confronts  Sophrona,  there  is  no  indication  that  the 
threats  he  has  uttered  against  her  in  his  soliloquy  in  522  ff  are  actually  carried 

out. 

10  Characteristic  examples  are  Capt.  516  ff  and  True.  553  ff  by  a  slave, 
Cas.  937  ff  by  senex,  and  from  Menander  'Ettit.  340  ff  by  a  slave  and  id.  487  ff 

by  adulescens. 

"  We  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  especially  to  this  soliloquy  below  (p.  37). 


6  The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 

The  sixth  type,  the  soliloquy  of  deliberation,  likewise  resembles 
the  fourth,  except  that  it  does  not  announce  but  merely  considers 
what  course  of  action  is  to  be  followed.  The  sentiment  with 
which  Epidicus  ends  his  soliloquy  in  Epid.  lOO  is  characteristic 
of  all  soliloquies  of  this  type :  aliqtiid  aliqua  reperiundumst.  We 
have  remarked  how  easily  the  soliloquy  of  announcement  may 
verge  upon  deliberation,  and  it  is  easy  to  see  how  vice  versa  the 
soliloquy  of  deliberation,  ending,  as  naturally  it  often  does,  with 
some  decision,  may  merge  into  announcement;  in  such  cases  the 
question  is  whether  the  greater  emphasis  falls  on  the  reaching 
of  the  decision  or  on  the  decision  reached.^^  Such  soliloquies  in 
Plautus  are  most  commonly  used  by  the  intriguing  slave,^^  but 
sometimes  also  by  other  characters,  e.g.,  by  senex  in  Merc.  328  fT, 
and  in  Menander  still  more  commonly.^* 

In  the  seventh  place,  a  few  soliloquies  are  used  primarily  for 
characterization.  They  are  rare,  even  as  characterization  in  New 
Comedy  is  rare,  beyond  the  broad  characterization  of  types. 
Perhaps  the  best  examples  in  Plautus  are  two  soliloquies  of 
Alcumena  in  the  Amphitruo  and  three  of  Euclio  in  the  Aulularia.^* 
It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remark  that  any  soliloquy  that  is 
dramatically  well  motivated  will  probably  contribute  at  least 
something  to  the  characterization  of  the  speaker.  Most  of  the 
soliloquies  in  Plautus,  as  we  shall  see,  are  not  well  motivated, 
but  it  is  usually  in  such  as  are  so  motivated  that  we  find  elements 
of  characterization,  sometimes  only  implicit,  sometimes  more 
explicit  but  still  so  interfused  with  other  elements  that  the 
soliloquy  can  not  be  regarded  as  solely  or  even  mainly  intended 
ior  characterization.  Indeed,  beyond  the  examples  just  given 
It  is  impossible  to  specify  any  such  soliloquies  in  Plautus,  and 
even  of  these  there  is  a  considerable  element  of  moralizing 
comment  in  Amph.  633  fT  and  of  comedy  in  Aul.  371  ff  and  466  flf. 
All  these,  It  is  interesting  to  observe,  are  drawn  from  two  of  the 

12  E.g.,  the  soliloquy  in  Mil.  259  flf,  which  is  clearly  deliberation,  ends  thus 
(267-268) : 

res  paratast,  vi  pugnandoque  hominem  caperest  certa  res; 

si  ita  non  reperio,  ibo.  .  .  . 
«  E.g.,  Asin.  249  ff,  Epid.  81  fT,  Mil.  259  fT. 

"  E.g.,  HepiK.  121  ff  and  Xan.  337  fT  by  adulescens,  Sa^.  no  fT  by  senex. 
"Amph.  633  ff,  882  ff;  Aul.  105  ff,  37i  ff,  460  ff. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy.  7 

best  plays;  they  are  all  excellent  far  beyond  the  average  soliloquy, 
and  usually  in  tone  far  above  the  common  level  of  Plautus's 
plays  16  As  for  Menander,  of  the  two  long  soliloquies  that 
contribute  most  to  the  characterization  of  the  speaker,  one  (2aM. 
no  fT)  has  already  been  cited  as  an  example  of  deliberation,  the 
other  CEttit.  487  ff),  of  comment;  only  the  short  one  in  UepiK. 
no  fT  can  be  regarded  as  a  pure  example  of  this  type. 

The  eighth  type  is  the  soliloquy  of  pure  moralizing,  which  is 
either  merely  a  monologue  on  some  general  topic  or  a  generaliza- 
tion from  the  particulars  of  some  situation  in  the  play.^^     For  this 
and  the  next  two  types  of  soliloquy  we  find  a  considerable  number 
of  examples,  as  compared  with  other  types,  in  the  fragments  of 
Middle^s  ^nd  New  Comedy.     This  is  not  surprising  if  we  recall 
the  motives  and  methods  of  the  compilers  to  whom  we  owe  most 
of  these  fragments:  they  were  looking  for  the  topical  and  general 
more  often  than  for  the  dramatic  and  particular.     A  genuine 
dramatic  commentary  such  as  Aul.  Cell.  II-23  on  Menander's 
UUklov,  to  which  we  owe  the  fragments  of  that  play,  is  the 
exception;    usually  we  have  only  the  topical  passages  that  an 
Athenaeus   would   find   useful,   or   the   purple   patches   that   a 
Stobaeus  would  admire.     (Just  so  the  man  who  quotes  Shake- 
speare seldom  knows  from  what  play  he  is  quoting.)     For  this 
very  reason  the  question  naturally  arises,  how  can  we  be  sure 
that  such  fragments  are  really  soliloquies  at  all?     In  fact,  we 
can  not  be  sure.     Sometimes,  indeed,  a  fragment  contains  proof 
that  it  is  a  soliloquy,!^  but  just  as  often  a  fragment  that  otherwise 

16  E.g.,  Amph.  640 

sola  hie  mi  nunc  videor,  quia  iUe  hinc  abest  quem  ego  amo  praeter  omnis. 

id.  644-645  ,    ,      J         . 

apsit,  dum  modo  laude  parta 

domum  recipiat  se. 

id.  882  -883  ^ 

durare  nequeo  in  aedibus:  ita  me  probn 
stupro  dedecoris  a  viro  argutam  meo. 

17  See  Leo,  Der  Monolog  im  Drama,  pp.  76-77- 

18  We  use  this  term  to  indicate  the  stage  in  the  development  of  comedy 
that  must  necessarily  have  intervened  between  the  last  two  plays  of  Aristoph- 
anes and  the  perfection  of  New  Comedy  in  Menander  and  Philemon. 

i»£.g.,  Alexis  186,  line  i 

6fUi3i  \oyiaacrdat,  irpdi  ifiavrdv  /8oi»Xo/xat. 

Alexis  245,  line  2 


8 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


precisely  resembles  a  soliloquy  contains  a  vocative  to  prove  that 
it  is  not.2o     However,  from  our  exact  knowledge  of  such  solilo- 
quies in  Latin  comedy,  and  especially  from  the  fact  that  in 
Plautus  and  Terence,  just  as  among  the  Greek  fragments,  we 
find  the  same  substance  continually  cast  now  into  monologue, 
now  into  dialogue,   we   may   argue— considering   the   negative 
character  of  what  little  evidence  the  fragments  themselves  supply 
and  the  fact  that  in  this  respect  the  vast  majority  are  non- 
committal—that for  the  purpose  of  this  discussion  we  are  fully 
warranted  in  using  any  fragment  of  this  sort,  provided  that  is  not 
specifically  excluded  by  its  own  content,  as  a  specimen  of  type, 
whether  that  particular  fragment  was  in  fact  a  soliloquy  or  not. 
The  only  point  of  contact — it  is  too  much  to  speak  of  real 
connection— of  the  moralizing  soliloquy  with  the  play  in  which 
it  stands  is  that  it  is  usually  suggested  by  some  point  in  the  plot 
or  in  the  situation  of  the  speaker.     So  Megadorus's  monologue 
on  the  bad  ways  of  rich  women  in  Aul.  575  ff  is  suggested  by  the 
fact  that  he  intends  to  marry  a  poor  woman,  but  it  might  just 
as  well  have  been  put  in  the  mouth  of  a  confirmed  old  bachelor 
like  Periplectomenus  in  the  Miles  or  a  hen-pecked  husband  like 
Demaenetus  in  the  Asinaria,  who  does  in  fact  express  a  similar 
sentiment.2i    The  two  topics  discussed  by  Megadorus,  the  evil 
of  having  a  dowried  wife  and  the  extravagance  of  such  women 
with    their   money,    are    among   the    commonest    subjects    for 
moralizing  in  New  Comedy.22    There  are,  moreover,  still  more 
general    attacks    on    women    and    marriage,^^    expressing    the 
attitude  of  Demaenetus  in  the  Asinaria  and  Demipho  in  the 

<f>i\oao<f>€LV  kirrjXdk  juot. 
Philemon  79,  lines  1-2 

ws  Ifxepos  At'  virrjXBe  yrj   re  Kohpavi^ 
Xc^at  .... 
Cf.  also  footnote  158.  ,   ' 

20  E.g.,  Apollodorus  Carystius  13,  line  15;    Euphron  i,  line  i;    Posidippus 

26,  lines  1-2;    Nicolaus,  lines  i  and  26. 

21  Asin.  87 

Argentum  accepi,  dote  imperium  vendidi. 

Cf.  also  Epid.  180,  also  in  dialogue. 

22  E.g.,  the  former  is  represented  by  Menander  532  and  Diodorus  3  and 
again  in  Plautus  by  Most.  702  flf,  the  latter  by  Menander  326. 

23  E.g.,  Anaxandrides  52,  Alexis  146  and  262,  Eubulus  116-117,  Menander 
154  and  535. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy.  9 

Mercator,  but  not  precisely  paralleled  by  any  one  soliloquy  in 
Plautus.24  Another  favorite  topic  is  love,^^  still  another  the 
decay  of  morals  and  regret  for  the  good  old  days.^^  Finally, 
we  find  the  purely  general,  almost  theoretical  soliloquy,  which 
we  may  even  term  philosophical:"  carpediem  says  Plautus  in 
Merc.  544  fif,  and  Antiphanes  in  fragment  204.28 

Some  moralizing  soliloquies,  like  Most.  84  ff,  are,  to  be  sure, 
fetter  motivated  than  the  great  majority  that  we  have  been 
discussing.     The  two  soliloquies  on  the  raising  of  children  in 
Terence's  Adelphi,  26  ff,  by  Micio,  and  855  ff,  by  Demea,  no 
matter  how  general,  are  dramatically  well  motivated;   so  is  the 
complaint  of  senex  in  Men.  758  ff  against  old  age.^^    Again,  the 
slave's  opportunity  to  moralize  about  duty  is  always  furnished 
by  the  situation.^^     But  generally  there  is  no  more  motivation 
than  there  is  for  Hamlet's  monologue  to  the  players;  playwright 
and  audience  were  alike  interested,  and  in  more  spacious  times 
that   was  enough.     The   soliloquy  of   moralizing   is   put   most 
often  into  the  mouth  of  slave  or  of  senex.     It  is  also  sometimes 
spoken  by  adulescens,  as  in  Men.  571  ff,  which  is  of  special  interest 
because  it  contains  a  large  number  of  Roman  social  and  political 
allusions,  such  as  we  should  expect  to  find  in  soliloquies  of  this 
type  adapted  for  Roman  comedy.     The  soliloquies  of  meretrix 
in  True.  448  ff  and  of  her  maid  in  209  ff  illustrate  a  rare  variety, 
i.e.,  moralizing  without  morals,  where  the  motivation  is  better 
than  usual  and  at  the  same  time  highly  ironical. 

A  ninth  type  of  soliloquy  is  used  wholly,  or  at  least  mostly,  for 
comic  effect.31     Naturally  it  is  almost  always  assigned  to  the 

24  Except  in  general  by  Merc.  817  ff,  which  however  represents  the  woman's 

point  of  view. 

25  E.g.,  Plaut.  Trin.  223  ff,  Alexis  245,  Eubulus  41,  Aristophon  11. 

2«  E.g.,  Plaut.  Trin.  23  ff,  1028  ff.     Cf.  Bacc.  419  ff  for  the  same  sentiment 

in  dialogue.  •    r^      1   .u      • 

27  The  philosophical  soliloquy,  which  is  far  more  common  m  Greek  than  m 
Latin  comedy,  may  be  so  much  more  profitably  considered  later  in  another 
connection  (Section  VI)  that  we  need  here  only  call  attention  to  it. 

28  On  the  general  subject  of  what  we  have  called  moralizing,  see  Legrand- 
Loeb,  The  New  Greek  Comedy  (London  and  New  York,  1917),  PP-  439  ff- 

2»  For  the  topic  cf.  Antiphanes  94,  Menander  552,  555. 
30  Aul.  587  ff,  Men.  966  ff,  Most.  858  ff,  Pseud.  1103  ff. 
"  On  this  general  subject  see  Legrand-Loeb,  pp.  463  ff- 


10 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


lower  characters:  so  we  find  the  roguish  puer,  the  blasphemous 
lenOy  the  bibulous  lena,  the  rascally  trapezitaP  But  the  favorite 
comic  characters  are  the  cook,  the  parasite  and  the  slave.  The 
monologue  of  the  cook  is  not  well  represented  in  Plautus.^^  To 
parallel  his  high-flown  disquisitions  on  his  art,  which  are  fairly 
common  in  new  Greek  comedy ,^^  we  have  in  Plautus  only  the 
short  speech  of  the  cook  in  Aul.  398  ff  and  the  cook's  conversation 
with  Ballio  in  Pseud.  803  ff,  which  better  reproduces  the  content 
of  the  Greek  examples,  though  neither  is  properly  a  soliloquy  at 
all.  We  find  also  a  humorous  attack  on  the  cooks  for  their 
slang  in  Strato  i,  which  can  be  paralleled  only  by  the  far  more 
general  attack  of  Ballio  on  the  cook  in  Pseud.  790  ff,  which  again 
is  not  a  soliloquy.  The  tardy  cook  seems  also  to  have  been  a 
stock  joke:  in  Merc.  697-698  senex  in  a  soliloquy  complains  of 
the  lateness  of  the  cook,  who  finally  arrives  at  line  741,  just  as 
in  Menander's  'ETrtrpcTroi^res  the  slave  complains  in  lines  165-167 
of  the  cook  who  arrives  only  at  line  384.  As  for  the  parasite,^^ 
the  nearest  parallels  in  Plautus  to  the  elaborate  defense  of  his 
calling  and  exposition  of  his  art  that  we  find  in  New  Comedy^® 
are  perhaps  Capt.  461  ff  and  Pers.  53  ff.  The  best  parallel  in 
Latin  is  Ter.  Eun.  232  ff,  which  because  of  the  resemblance  of 
line  238  to  fragment  296  from  Menander's  KoXaJ  we  may  fairly 
suppose  closely  reproduces  the  original.  The  parasite  in  the 
Stichus  refers  in  line  233  to  Hercules  as  his  patron,  but  there  is  no 
parallel  for  the  mythological  derivation  of  his  calling  that  we 
find  in  Diodorus  2.  By  way  of  compensation  Plautus  offers  the 
comic  auction  of  Stich.  193  ff,  for  which  there  is  no  parallel  in 
the  Greek.  Usually,  however,  he  shows  us  merely  the  hungry 
parasite,  as  in  Capt.  69  ff  and  Men.  77  ff,  or  the  parasite  dis- 
coursing on  his  stomach,  as  in  Stich.  155  ff,  to  which  Diphilus  60 

^^  E.g.,  Capt.  909  fF,  Poen.  449  flf,  Cure.  96  flf,  id.  371  flf  respectively.  The 
banker  has  since  risen  in  the  drama;  the  best  commentary  on  his  ancient 
position  is  a  fragment  of  Antiphanes  (159),  where  bankers  are  classed  with 
priests  of  Cybele  and  fish-sellers. 

"  See  E.  M.  Ranklin,  The  R61e  of  the  fi&yeipoi  in  the  Life  of  the  Ancient 
Greeks  (Diss.  Chicago,  1907). 

.^*  E.g.,  Alexis  186,  Sotades  i,  Archedicus  2,  Philemon  79. 

'^  Besides  the  general  discussion  in  Legrand-Loeb,  see  O.  Ribbeck  on  the 
K6\a^  in  Abhandlungen  der  s^chs.   Gesellschaft  der  Wissenschaften  for  1883. 

'•  E.g.,  Antiphanes  80,  144,  Axionicus  6,  Timocles  8. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


II 


Is  similar.  Plautus  in  dealing  with  the  parasite  is  generally  more 
realistic  than  the  Greek  fragments,  though  even  he  hardly  equals 
the  stark  realism  of  Epicharmus  in  the  parasite's  speech  preserved 
from  one  of  his  plays.^^ 

The  chief  comic  character  is  of  course  the  slave.^s    We  have 
the  drunken  slave  in  Pseud.  1246  ff,  the  slave  in  fear  of  punish- 
ment  in  Most.  348  ff  and  Trin.  1008  ff  and  Menander  I95»  the 
sl^ve  in  love  (and  out  of  luck)  in  Rud.  458  ff.     Commonest  of 
all  comic  varieties  of  soliloquy,  however,  is  the  monologue  of  the 
running  slave,  of  which  the  best  examples  are  Merc,  iii  ff  and 
Stich.  274  ff,  burlesques  of  which  Mercury's  monologue  in  Amph. 
984  ff  is  itself  a  burlesque.^^     There  are  also  two  running  mono- 
logues, to  call  them  so,  for  the  parasite,  where  the  parasite's  part 
differs  not  at  all  from  that  of  the  usual  slave.^^    This  last  fact 
suggests  that  comic  soliloquies  are  also  sometimes  based  upon 
situation  rather  than  upon  character.    We  have  already  noticed 
the  motif  of  drunkenness  applied  to  both  slave  and  lena.     So  we 
find  the  appeal  for  help  In  difficulty,  such  as  the  outburst  of  the 
cook  in  Aul.  406  ff  after  being  beaten  and  the  similar  outburst 
of  Euclio  id.  713  ff  after  being  robbed.     Or  we  might  regard  the 
latter  as  Illustrating  the  motif  of  the  search  and  compare  it  to 
the  soliloquy  of  the  slave  In  Cist.  671  ff  while  hunting  for  the 

lost  casket. 

Tenth  Is  a  distinct  type  of  soliloquy,  easier  however  to  recog- 
nize than  to  name,  which  we  may  call  the  topical-rhetorical 
monologue.^i  The  best  examples  are  the  adulescens'  comparison 
of  his  character  to  a  house  In  Most.  84  ff,  the  slave's  comparison 

"  Kaibel,  Comicorum  Graecorum  Fragmenta  (Berlin,  1899)  34-35,  ^rom 
the  'EXxis  ^'  nXoOros.  No  other  fragment  of  Epicharmus  offers  any  pomt  of 
contact  with  the  soliloquy  in  New  Comedy,  and  none  sheds  any  light  on  the 
precise  sense  in  which  Horace  meant  his  well-known  comment  m  Epist.  2,  i,  58. 

38  On  the  slave  especially,  but  also  on  the  parasite  and  the  cook,  see  W. 
Suess,  De  personarum  antiquae  comoediae  Atticae  usu  atque  origine  (Bonn, 
1905),  Part  IV,  and  C.  H.  Haile,  The  Clown  in  Greek  Literature  after  Aris- 
tophanes  (Diss.  Princeton,  1913),  especially  chapters  2  to  5. 

39  See  C.  Weissmann,  De  servi  currentis  persona  apud   comicos    Romanos 

(Diss.  Giessen,  1911)- 

"  Capt.  790  ff  and  Cure.  280  ff.  .  i-         u  .  ^u 

«  Soliloquies  of  the  type  to  which  we  here  refer  are  m  reality  what  the 

ancient  rhetoricians  meant  by  irpoyvuvaafxara',  see  pp.  49-50. 


12 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


of  his  exploits  to  the  siege  of  Troy  in  Bacc.  925  ff,  and  the 
adulescens'  trial  and  condemnation  of  Love  in  Trin.  223  ff,  to 
which  we  might  add  the  rather  elaborate  military  metaphor  in 
Pseud.  574  ff .  There  are  no  satisfactory  parallels  from  the  Greek ; 
possibly  the  nearest  equivalents  are  the  comparison  drawn  be- 
tween the  hetaerae  and  the  monsters  of  mythology  in  Anaxilas  i, 
the  analysis  of  the  character  of  Love  in  Alexis  245  and  the  criti- 
cism of  the  painting  of  Love  in  Eubulus  41. 

So  far  we  have  distinguished  ten  different  types  of  soliloquy. 
But  in  fact,  as  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  point  out,  many  of  the 
soliloquies  are  more  or  less  mixed  in  kind.  We  have  already 
indicated  the  obvious  resemblance  between  exposition  a^d  com- 
ment and  between  announcement  and  deliberation,  and  remarked 
how  such  elements  of  true  characterization  as  there  are  in  Latin 
comedy  and  in  New  Comedy,  so  far  at  least  as  it  is  represented 
by  Menander,  are  fused  into  soliloquies  that  must  be  differently 
classified.  All  the  different  classes,  however,  overlap  in  various 
ways.  The  comic  element,  for  example,  is  very  great  in  the 
clever  rhetorical  monologue  in  Bacc.  925  ff,  and  is  in  general,  as 
would  be  expected,  more  often  present  than  not  in  all  the  solilo- 
quies. A  slave,  to  cite  another  example,  can  not  philosophize 
like  any  freeman,  as  he  does  in  Triri.  1028  ff  and  Pseud.  679  ff, 
without  raising  a  laugh :  in  particular  the  dutiful  slave  moralizing 
on  his  duty  is  invariably  comic,  if  for  no  other  reason  because, 
by  dramatic  irony,  he  is  seldom  doing  his  duty  while  he  is  talking 
about  it.  Again,  Pseudolus's  drunken  monologue  in  lines  1246  ff 
is  at  the  same  time  a  narrative  of  past  events  off  stage,  while 
Olympio's  narrative  in  Cas.  875  ff  is  pure  farce:  the  only  reason 
for  placing  these  two  soliloquies  in  different  classes,  as  we  have 
done,  is  that  the  events  related  in  the  former  are  trivial  and  the 
comedy  the  only  important  effect  aimed  at,'*^  while  in  the  latter 
the  events  related,  no  matter  how  comic,  are  essential  to  the 
denouement.  Similarly,  the  comic  appeals  for  help  in  the 
Aulularia,  mentioned  above,  are  also  explanations  of  or  comments 
on  action  just  past;  perhaps  the  miser's  laments  would  not  even 
seem  funny  to  a  modern  audience,  as  Harpagon's  do  not  in 

^  The  effect  of  this  monologue,  immediately  preceding  the  happy  denoue- 
ment, is  not  unlike  the  typical  i^os  of  Old  Comedy,  especially  of  the 
Acharnians. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


13 


L'Avare,  nor  Shylock's  for  his  lost  daughter  and  his  lost  ducats. 
Still  again,  the  monologue  of  the  running  slave— or  parasite- 
must  always  be  related  somewhat  to  the  soliloquy  of  exposition 

or  development. 

On  the  contrary,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  a  classification 
according  to  distinction  of  type,  such  as  we  have  attempted,  is 
without  a  sound  basis.     Not  only  are  most  soliloquies  plainly 
some  one  thing  more  than  any  other,  but  there  are  plenty  of 
soliloquies  of  pure  type.     A  glance  at  Table  I  in  the  appendix 
will  show  that  a  majority  of  soliloquies  are  of  pure  type  m  the 
writer's  judgment,  and  an  examination  of  the  passages  indicated 
in  their  context  in  the  plays  will  test  his  judgment,  so  that  the 
reader  will  either  find  him  right  or  easily  prove  him  wrong. 
This  table  should,  mo/eover,  show  clearly  just  what  kinds  of 
confusion  are  commonest,  i.e.,  those  that  arise  from  a  blending  of 
comment,  moralizing  and  comedy  with  other  types,  especially 
exposition  and  development.     That  is  to  say,  all  we  can  pretend 
to  do  is  to  assign  any  given  soliloquy  to  the  class  wherein  it 
predominantly  belongs,  disregarding  the  minor  elements,  to  call 
them  so,  if  we  wish  to  emphasize  the  unquestionable  existence  of 
the  different  types,  but  calling  attention  to  them  if  we  wish  to 
emphasize  the  confusion  of  the  different  types  in  practice. 

To  provide,  however,  for  certain  soliloquies  that  will  not  con- 
form to  any  of  the  ten  types  we  have  distinguished,  it  seems 
necessary  to  make  two  additional  classes.  First— as  the  eleventh 
type-there  are  some  soliloquies  that  are  so  evenly  blended  of 
different  elements  that  we  can  only  call  them  mixed.  So  we 
find  moralizing  joined  with  exposition  in  True.  22  ff,  elsewhere 
with  development  and  comment i^^  likewise  comedy  with  exposi- 
tion,^^ and  in  Men.  446  ff  with  development.  These,  as  we  have 
said,  are  the  commonest  mixtures;  but  we  find  also  comedy  with 
moralizing,  comment  with  announcement,  deliberation  with  ex- 
position.^^ The  soliloquy  of  Gripus  in  Rud.  906  ff,  dramatically 
one  of  the  best  to  be  found  in  Plautus,  contains  explanation  {i.e., 
development),  characterization,  moralizing  and  comic  relief. 
Similarly  the  topical-rhetorical  monologue  that  we  have  men- 

«  Poen.  823  fT,  Pseud.  667  flf. 

**  Capt.  69  flf,  Most.  348  flf.  . 

«  £  g    Trin.  1008  ff,  Bacc.  500  ff,  Epid.  81  ff  respectively. 


14 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


tioned  in  Trin.  223  ff^^  contains  also  considerable  elements  of 
deliberation  and  characterization.  With  these  two  the  rhetorical 
monologue  in  Most.  84  ff  might  also  be  classified,  except  that 
there  the  rhetorical  element  predominates  so  decidedly  that 
even  the  exposition  it  does  contain  is  cast  in  a  metaphorical  form. 
In  Menander  there  are  two  clear  examples  of  the  mixed  soliloquy, 
'ETTtr.  340  ff,  made  up  of  comment  and  characterization,  and 
Sa/x.  no  ff,  of  characterization  and  deliberation. 

Lastly,  there  are  a  few  monologues  of  peculiar  type,  always 
very  few  of  a  kind,  which,  while  deserving  to  be  distinguished, 
can  only  be  lumped  together  in  an  anomalous  twelfth  class. 
These  are,  first,  the  monologue  of  the  choragus  in  Cure.  462  ff, 
which,  while  it  consists  entirely  of  comment,  is  general  comment 
only,  without  even  the  slight  connection  that  the  ordinary 
moralizing  soliloquy  has  with  the  play  in  which  it  stands; 
secondly,  two  monologues  that  relate  dreams  symbolizing  the 
entire  action  of  the  play,  both  by  senesf  thirdly,  the  Carthagin- 
ian speech  of  Hanno  in  Poen.  930  ff;  finally,  two  soliloquies 
interwoven  in  Merc.  830-863,  where  neither  adulescens  is  aware 
of  the  other's  presence,  a  device  employed  also  in  Menander, 
'Ettit.  2 1 4-225. ^s 

It  should  by  now  be  clear  in  general  how  far  the  classification 
of  soliloquies  according  to  type  and  content  can  be  carried  and 
what  its  results  are.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  it  has  at  least  been 
shown  that  clear  differences  in  type  do  exist,  and  that  at  the 
same  time  many  soliloquies  contain  minor  elements  of  other 
types.  It  is  to  be  hoped  also  that  enough  examples  have  been 
cited  to  justify  the  conclusions,  such  as  they  are,  that  have  been 
reached ;  in  any  case  more  examples  can  easily  be  found  with  the 
aid  of  the  appended  Table  I.  As  for  the  attempt  to  give  exact 
figures  for  the  twelve  different  types,  the  calculation  depends  so 

*"  These  mixed  soliloquies  we  shall  refer  to  as  belonging  to  any  one  of  the 
individual  types  of  the  mingling  of  which  they  are  composed,  if  they  contain 
any  evidence  which  is  useful  for  consideration  of  that  type,  as  we  have  already 
done,  e.g.f  in  citing  this  soliloquy  and  in  using  the  two  mixed  soliloquies  in 
Ter.  Adel.  26  flf  and  855  ff  as  specimens  of  characterization. 

*^  Merc.  225  flf  and  Rud.  593  ff. 

*^  It  is  only  the  first  three  of  these  soliloquies  that  we  shall  need  to  mention 
again. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


15 


much  on  the  writer's  judgment  that  the  reader  may  well  be 
induced  to  examine  for  himself  the  numerous  examples  that  will 
appear  to  him  dubious.  The  table  will  also  show  the  number  of 
soliloquies  of  each  type  and  the  total  number  spoken  by  each  type 
of  character,  and  the  proportion  of  soliloquies  belonging  to  any 
one  type  of  character  to  the  whole  number.  A  glance  will  show 
to  how  great  an  extent  the  slave,  senex  and  adulescens  predomi- 
nate.-*^ 

"  Table  II,  which  similady  analyzes  the  plays  of  Terence,  is  interesting  in 
this  connection;  it  shows  that  the  only  considerable  difference  in  Terence  is 
the  reversal  of  the  relative  prominence  of  adulescens  and  slave,  which  well 
typifies  the  difference  in  plot,  style  and  general  tone  between  Plautus  and 
Terence. 


II.    THE    FUNCTION    OF   THE    SOLILOQUY    IN    THE 

STRUCTURE. 


By  structure  we  mean  the  process  of  employing  and  adapting 
dramatic  means  to  the  dramatic  end,  i.e.j  the  development  of 
the  plot  and  situation  to  their  proper  conclusion.  We  define 
the  sense  in  which  we  use  the  term  in  order  to  make  plain  the 
difference  between  the  point  of  view  here  adopted  and  that  of 
Leo  in  Der  Monolog  im  Drama.  He  concerns  himself  chiefly 
with  what  we  may  call  the  purely  internal  economy  of  the  play, 
irrespective  of  the  dramatic  end  to  be  achieved,  i.e.,  with  the 
relation  of  the  soliloquy,  as  one  kind  of  dramatic  device,  to 
other  parts  of  the  play,  particularly  in  respect  to  its  position. 
So  (pp.  46  ff)  he  classifies  soliloquies  as  i,  (a)  Auftrittsmonolog 
(i.e.,  the  character  enters  on  an  empty  stage),  (b)  Zutrittsmonolog 
(the  character  enters  on  a  stage  already  occupied);  2,  (a)  Ab- 
gangsmonolog  (the  character  leaves  the  stage),  (b)  Uebergangs- 
monolog  (the  character  remains  on  the  stage);  and  3,  "das 
pathetische  Sprechen  tiber  die  Kopfe  der  Anwesenden  fort." 
It  is  only  in  regard  to  his  third  class  that  he  considers  at  all 
what  we  mean  by  dramatic  end.  The  sum  of  his  argument  we 
may  perhaps  profitably  quote  here,  though  at  the  end  it  some- 
what anticipates  our  own:  on  page  62  he  concludes  "dass  in  der 
neuen  Komodie  von  Anfang  an  die  Monologe  eine  besondere 
Bedeutung  ftir  die  theatralische  Distinction  der  Teile  gehabt 
haben  .  .  .  dass  auch  in  dieser  Verwendung  des  Monologs  die 
junge  Komodie  sich  unmittelbar  an  die  spate  Produktion  des 
Euripides  anlehnen  konnte  .  .  .  aber  .  .  .  musste,  um  etwas 
die  Technik  in  dieser  Richtung  ausbilden  zu  konnen,  der  Chor 
als  irpocrojirov  der  Handlung  beseitigt  sein,  den  Euripides  erst  von 
der  Biihne  entfernen  musste  um  ein  Einzelspiel  herbeizufiihren."^* 

To  return  to  our  immediate  subject,  it  need  hardly  be  said 
that  the  criteria  that  we  have  adopted  are  the  criteria  of  Plautus's 

^°  Leo's  theory  is  carefully  criticized  by  C.  C.  Conrad  in  The  Technique  of 
Continuous  Action  in  Roman  Comedy  (Diss.  Chicago,  191 5),  especially  in  the 
introduction  and  in  Chapter  V.     His  final  conclusions  are  unfavorable  to  Leo^ 

16 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


17 


technique,  not  of  modern  technique:    the  question  asked  was 
not,  did  Plautus  need  to  use  a  given  soliloquy,  but  what  use,  if 
any,  did  he  make  of  it  in  the  structure  of  his  play?    Whether  of 
itself  the  structure  is  good  or  bad— good  or  bad  according  to 
modern  standards  or  even  according  to  Plautus's  own  standards- 
makes  no  difference  for  our  purpose.^^     Now,  granted  only  that 
our  classification  be  correct,  the  first  four  types  of  soliloquy  we 
can  easily  recognize  as  at  least  largely  essential.     The  other  types 
we  can  as  easily  recognize  are  not  essential  at  all.     Of  these  the 
soliloquy  to  suggest  character  and  the  soliloquy  of  deliberation 
may  be  called  useful  though  not  necessary,  but  with  possibly 
some  few  exceptions  they  are  comparatively  quite  unnecessary. 
We  do  not  mean  that  they  are  bad  (in  fact  some  of  them  are 
among  the  best  of  all  the  soliloquies),  but  only  that  in  the 
structure  they  are  practically  useless  and  that  by  them  the 
action  is  rather  held  up  than  helped  along.     Of  the  193  soliloquies 
examined  in  Plautus,  70  (including  most  of  the  mixed  type) 
seemed  to  the  writer  necessary,  9  useful,   114  not  useful.     It 
therefore  appears  that  there  is  both  an  extraordinary  reliance  on 
soliloquies  to  develop  the  structure  and  a  still  more  extraordinary 
number  of  soliloquies  unnecessary  for  the  structure.     Extreme 
cases  are,  for  example,  Aul.  580-726,  in  which  there  are  nine 
soliloquies  (91  out  of  147  lines),  six  of  which  are  necessary,  and 
Merc.  661-704,  in  which  there  are  four  (24  out  of  44  Hnes),  three  of 
which  are  necessary.     In  Menander's  Sa/xla  lines  271-312  consist 
wholly  of  two  soliloquies,  likewise  'Ettit.  457-501.     Nor  can  any 
distinction  be  drawn  in  this  respect  between  the  better  and  the 
poorer  plays:    of  plays  containing  the  fewest  soliloquies,   the 
Cistellaria,  the  Epidicus  and  the  Asinaria  (which  has  only  one), 
none  is  among  Plautus^s  best,  whereas  of  those  containing  the 
most,    the    Pseudolus,    the   Truculentus,    the   Trinummus,   the 
Aulularia,  the  Mercator  (the  last  two  have  16  and   14  respec- 
tively) and  the  Rudens  (which  has  20,  the  largest  number  found), 
"  In  this  connection  there  is  a  valuable  warning  to  us  how  completely  the 
modern  dislike  of  the  soliloquy  must  be  discounted  in  Leo's  remarks  (Der 
Monolog.  pp.  3-4)  on  the  fact  that  its  frequent  use  in  ancient  comedy  was 
probably  due  not  wholly  to  a  dramatic  or  theatrical  convention  but  partl> 
also  to  a  natural  Greek  habit,  at  least  in  early  times,  of  talking  aloud  to  one  s 
self,  already  abundantly  illustrated  in  Homer. 


i8 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


at  least  four  are  mong  his  best.  To  consider  the  plays  as  a  whole, 
Table  I  will  show  that,  in  the  plays  that  contain  more  than 
ten  soliloquies  each,  the  number  of  lines  of  soliloquy  varies  from 
i6  to  31  per  cent  of  the  total  number  of  lines,  while  in  only  two 
plays  is  the  percentage  below  ten.  The  significance  of  these 
figures  can  perhaps  be  brought  out  most  forcibly  if  we  remark 
that  even  in  Hamlet  the  proportion  of  lines  of  soliloquy  is  only 
seven  per  cent. 


Ill     THE   RELATION    BETWEEN    LATIN   AND    NEW 
GREEK   COMEDY    IN    RESPECT   TO   THE 

SOLILOQUY. 

In  view  of  these  facts  as  to  the  part  played  by  soliloquy  in 
Latin  comedy,  which  the  most  casual  reader  must  know  differ 
greatly  from  the  facts  as  to  the  use  of  soliloquy  in  Aristophanes 
and  in  tragedy ,^2  ^e  are  naturally  led  to  ask  precisely  to  what 
extent  Plautus  was  in  this  respect  following  his  originals.     In 
other  words,  to  what  extent  does  a  soliloquy  in  Plautus  imply 
a  soliloquy  in  his  original,  or  how  much,  in  this  respect,  was  a 
typical  specimen  of  New  Comedy  like  a  typical  play  of  Plautus? 
The  natural  way  to  approach  this  question  is  of  course  through 
Terence.     Table  II  in  the  appendix  tabulates  the  results  of  an 
examination  of  his  plays  similar  to  that  we  have  made  of  Plautus. 
In  the  first  place,  the  proportion  of  lines  of  soliloquy  to  total 
number  of  lines  varies  in  the  six  plays  from  18  per  cent  in  the 
Adelphi   to  seven  in  the  Heautontimoroumenos ;    the  highest 
average  is  below  the  highest  in  Plautus,  the  lowest  above  the 
lowest  in  Plautus.     The  average  number  of  soliloquies  in  a  play 
is  slightly  greater  than  in  Plautus.     In  the  second  place,  of  the 
different  types  of  soliloquy  that  we  have  distinguished,  the  table 
will  show  that  there  are  in  Terence  specimens  of  all  except  the 
soliloquy  as  technical  prologue,  the  soliloquy  of  announcement, 
and  what  we  have  called  the  topical-rhetorical  monologue.^^     The 
absence  of  the  first  type  is  of  no  consequence,  the  absence  of  the 
second  can  hardly  be  thought  significant  in  view  of  the  presence  of 
so  many  soliloquies  of  development,  comment  and  deliberation; 
the  possible  significance  of  the  absence  of  the  third  type  we  shall 
consider  later.     There  are  only  two  considerable  differences  in 
proportion  among  the  different  classes,  as  compared  with  Plautus. 
First,  in  Terence  the  soliloquy  of  development  and  the  soliloquy 
of  comment  are  relatively  more  common  than  in  Plautus,  which 
is,  however,  a  fact  of  little  importance.     Second,  there  is  only 
one  comic  soliloquy  in  Terence,  which  represents  a  proportion 

*2  This  point  will  be  considered  in  more  detail  in  Section  IV. 

M  There  are  no  soliloquies  in  Terence  that  need  be  classified  as  anomalous. 

19 


20 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


of  the  total  number  of  soliloquies  only  one  eighth  of  the  corre- 
sponding proportion  in  Plautus;  to  this  fact,  which  on  the  con- 
trary is  of  importance,  we  shall  shortly  recur.  In  the  third 
place,  and  lastly,  the  ratio  in  Terence  of  soliloquies  necessary  or 
useful  to  those  not  useful  differs  only  in  being  a  little  higher 
than  the  ratio  in  Plautus. 

All  these  facts  stand  out  so  plainly  that  we  are  quite  justified 
in  concluding  that  so  far,  with  the  exception  of  the  topical- 
rhetorical  monologue  and  the  comic  soliloquy,  Terence's  treat- 
ment of  the  soliloquy  differs  in  no  important  respect  from 
Plautus's.  Now  we  know  how  closely  Terence  imitated  his  Greek 
originals.  Therefore  Plautus's  treatment  of  those  types  of  solilo- 
quy that  are  found  also  in  Terence,  likewise  their  place,  or  lack 
of  place,  in  the  structure  of  his  plays,  may  safely  be  assumed  to 
be  the  same  as  that  of  the  Greek  originals. 

In  addition  to  the  evidence  of  the  plays  of  Terence  themselves, 
the  commentary  of  Donatus  furnishes  us  with  valuable  informa- 
tion. First,  he  quotes  four  fragments  of  Menander,  three  on  the 
Adelphi,  one  on  the  Eunuchus,^^  as  equivalents  of  lines  in  solilo- 
quies in  Terence;  it  is  therefore  fair  to  assume,  if  he  says  nothing 
to  the  contrary,  that  there  were  similar  soliloquies  in  the  originals. 
Second,  he  comments  three  times,  once  with  express  approval, 
on  places  where  Terence  has  eliminated  a  soliloquy  that  he 
found  in  Menander.^^  On  the  contrary,  only  once  does  Donatus 
tell  us  that  Terence  used  a  soliloquy  where  there  was  none  in  his 

"  Men.  'ASeX.  i  on  Ter.  Adel.  43-44;  a  line  of  which  the  Greek  is  hopelessly 
corrupt  on  Ter.  Adel.  199;  Men.  'ASeX.  10  on  Ter.  Adel.  866;  Men.  K6Xa^ 
on  Ter.  Eun.  238. 

"  On  Ter.  Eun.  539:  Bene  inventa  persona  est  cui  narret  Chaerea,  ne  unus 
diu  loquatur,  ut  apud  Menandrum. 

On  Ter.  And.  prol.  14:  Primam  scaenam  de  Perinthia  translatam  .  .  ., 
ubi  senex  ita  cum  uxore  loquitur  ut  apud  Terentium  cum  liberto.  At  in 
Andria  Menandri  solus  senex  est. 

On  Ter.  Hec.  i:  Novo  genere  hie  utraque  TrporaKTiKa  irpdaojira  inducuntur; 
.  .  .  hoc  autem  maluit  Terentius  quam  aut  per  prologum  narraret  aut 
Oedv  dird  /jirjxavrjs  induceret  loqui. 

With  this  last  comment  may  be  compared  the  elimination  by  Turpilius  in 
his  Epicleros  (frag,  i,  quoted  by  Priscian  in  De  metris  Terentii,  in  Keil  III, 
p.  254)  of  a  soliloquy  of  the  love-sick  youth,  of  the  type  unfavorably  referred 
to  in  Plant.  Merc.  3-4,  which  was  apparently  found  in  Menander's  'ExkXi7pos 
(frag.  164). 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


21 


original,  and  in  that  instance  he  implies  that  there  was  a  good 
reason.^®     Similarly  Aulus  Gellius  in  his  commentary  on  Menan- 
der's U\6klov  quotes  two  fragments  of  soliloquies."     The  solilo- 
quies upon  which  these  comments  are  based  represent  the  types 
of  exposition,  development,  and  comment  surely,  perhaps  also 
announcement,    deliberation,    characterization    and    moralizing. 
We  can  accordingly  now  go  a  step  further  and  maintain  that,  at 
least  with  regard  to  those  types  of  soliloquy,  there  is  not  only 
no  doubt  that  Terence  did  not  use  the  soliloquy  more  freely 
than  his  originals,  but  some  probability  that  he  used  it  less  freely. 
This  hypothesis  receives  additional  support  from  the  fact  that, 
in  the  two  plays  of  Plautus  that  can  safely  be  attributed  definitely 
to  Menander,  the  Bacchides  and  the  Stichus,  and  in  the  Aulularia, 
which  can  be  attributed  to  him  with  a  high  degree  of  probability ,^« 
the  percentage  of  lines  of  soliloquy  in  the  total  number  of  lines  is 
respectively  18,  23  and  26,  figures  which,  as  we  shall  soon  see, 
accord  more  nearly  with  the  figures  for  the  actual  remnants  of 
Menander  than  the  corresponding  figures  for  the  plays  of  Terence 
based  on  Menander,  which  vary  from  seven  to  18. 

Now  what  holds  of  Terence  we  have  shown  above  surely  holds 
of  Plautus.  But  the  converse  is  not  necessarily  true.  May 
what  holds  of  Plautus,  if  it  does  not  hold  of  Terence,  hold  of 
Plautus's  originals?  We  must,  that  is,  seek  more  light  on  the 
topical-rhetorical  monologue,  which  is  not  found  at  all  in  Terence, 
and  on  the  comic  soliloquy.  The  one  example  of  the  latter, 
Eun.  223  fT,  it  is  true  we  have  just  seen  can  safely  be  attributed 
to  the  original  of  Menander.  But  even  so  conclusive  an  instance 
seems  insufftcient  evidence,  if  it  is  at  all  possible  to  get  more, 
when  we  consider  that  in  the  Phormio,  a  play  in  which  the 
central  figure  is  the  parasite,  there  is  not  one  purely  comic 
soliloquy  spoken  by  him,  nor  in  any  of  Terence's  plays  any 
such  soliloquy  spoken  by  a  slave.  Happily,  while  Terence's 
plays  do  not  give  us  any  information  on  this  point,  his  prologues 
"Don.  on  Ter.  Hec.  825:  Brevitati  consulit  Terentius,  nam  in  Graeca 
haec  aguntur,  non  narrantur. 

"  Aul.  Gell.  2,  23;   Menander  402,  404. 

"  See  F.  Hueffner,  De  Plauti  comoediarum  exemplis  Atticis  (Diss.  Gottin- 

gen,  1894). 


22 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


do.     In  prol.  Eun.  7-8  Terence  refers  to  his  enemy  Luscius 
Lanuvinus,  the  malus  poeta  of  the  prologues, 


qui  bene  vortendo  et  easdem  scribendo  male 
ex  graecis  bonis  Latinas  fecit  non  bonas. 


Now  in  prol. 


ex  graecis  uuins  i^aLiiicts  iccit  iiuii  uuiias. 

That  is,  Lanuvinus  imitated  his  originals  closely. 
Heaut.  31-32  Terence  again  refers  to  him, 

qui  nuper  fecit  servo  currenti  in  via 
decesse  populum. 

Lastly,  in  prol.  Eun.  36  he  mentions  currentem  servum  scribere 
among  the  commonplaces  of  comedy,  in  line  41  concluding  that 

nullumst  iam  dictum  quod  non  sit  dictum  prius.^^ 

Apparently,  then,  Terence  either  carefully  selected  originals  of 
a  type  less  likely  to  contain  such  soliloquies  or,  if  he  did  find  them 
in  his  original,  omitted  them,^°  a  possibility  that  seems  probable 
enough  in  view  ot  the  comments  of  Donatus  that  we  have  just 
quoted.^^  For  this  evidence  seems  quite  conclusive  for  new 
Greek  comedy  in  general,  particularly  when  reinforced  from 
similar  allusions  in  Plautus.^^ 

The  same  question  in  regard  to  the  topical-rhetorical  mono- 
logue is  somewhat  more  difficult.  In  prol.  Phor.  6-8  Terence, 
comparing  himself  to  Lanuvinus,  says  of  himself: 

nusquam  insanum  scripsit  adulescentulum 
cervam  videre  fugere,  et  sectari  canes, 
et  earn  plorare  ut  subveniat  sibi. 

**  This  soliloquy  of  the  running  slave  may  well  have  been  a  parody  of  such 
a  walking  soliloquy,  to  call  it  so,  as  that  of  the  irpka^vs  in  Eur.  Elec.  487  ff, 
which  is  not  unlike  the  walking — or  hurrying — soliloquy  of  senex  in  Plaut. 

Men.  753  ff- 

*°  If  Menander  really  went  further  than  his  predecessors  and  contemporaries 
in  distinguishing  true  comedy  from  farce,  it  seems  that  Terence  was  inclined 
to  go  even  further  than  Menander — certainly  as  far. 

•*  Similar  evidence  of  omissions  by  Plautus  is  afforded  by  Ter.  prol.  Adel. 
6-10  and  Plaut.  Cas.  63-65. 

•2  Capt.  778,  eodem  pacto  ut  comici  servi  solent;    Poen.  523,  servoli  esse 
festinantem  currere;   and  especially  Mercury's  words  in  Amph.  986-987: 
num  mihi  quidem  hercle  qui  minus  licet  dec  minitari 
populo  ni  decedat  mihi  quam  servolo  in  comoediis? 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


23 


This  perhaps  hints  at  a  rhetorical  monologue  somewhat  similar 
to  those  found  in  Plautus.^^     This  evidence  is  to  be  sure  in- 
adequate.    It   is   perhaps   a   little   strengthened   by   the   three 
fragments  of  New  Comedy  that  we  have  already  referred  to®^ 
as  probable  specimens  of  this  type  of  soliloquy,  although,  as  we 
remarked,  they  also  are  inadequate  by  themselves.    The  strongest 
argument,  however,  is  the  negative  one  that  we  know  of  no  case 
where  either  Plautus  or  Terence  added  any  considerable  element 
to  his  play  that,  even  though  not  found  in  the  original,  was  not 
at  least  the  common  property  of  New  Comedy .^^     The  occasional 
minor  Roman  allusions  in  Plautus  are  of  course  to  be  excepted, 
and  even  these  were  doubtless  largely  substitutes  for  similar 
Greek  local  allusions  in  the  originals.^^     So  far  as  the  writer  is 
aware,  the  only  case  where  it  has  been  suggested  that  either 
poet  used  a  non-dramatic  source    is  Ter.  Phor.  339  ff,  where 
for  the   illegible  name   in    Donatus's  comment    "haec   non   ab 
Apollodoro  sed  de  .  .  .  translata  sunt  omnia"   Vahlen  would 
read  a  reference  to  Ennius's  satires,  for  which,  however,  he  seems 
to  produce  no  good  evidence.    Similarly,  the  only  case  known  to 
the  writer  where  it  has  been  plausibly  suggested  that  any  con- 
siderable portion  of  a  play  of  either  is  original   is  the  comic 
auction  in  Stich.  193  ff,  which,  on  the  basis  of  lines  1 93-1 95." 
Leo  argues^^  could  not  have  been  in   the  Greek  play.     Leo's 
argument  we  must  grant  succeeds  in  establishing  at  least  an 
interesting  possibility,  but  even  if  we  grant  him  his  conclusion 
we  have  only  a  solitary  instance,   for  he  himself  adduces  no 
parallels. 

«'  On  the  contrar}',  it  may  indicate  only  a  scene  similar  to  Plaut.  Men.  835  ff. 

"See  p.  12. 

^  Such  additions,  exclusive  of  contamination,  are  the  addition  of  characters 
not  found  in  the  original,  of  which  Donatus  informs  us  on  And.  301  and  Eun. 
539,  and  minor  alterations  of  dramatic  detail,  where  Donatus  thinks  Terence 
has  improved  on  his  original,  e.g..  And.  891,  Phor.  91,  482. 

6«See  Westaway,  Original  Elements  in  Plautus  (Cambridge,  1917).  which 
confirms  this  suggestion  by  comparing,  e.g.,  the  Mercator  and  the  Pseudolus 

in  this  respect. 

67  Haec  verba  subigunt  med  ut  mores  barbaros 

discam  atque  ut  faciam  praeconis  compendium 
itaque  auctionem  praedicem  ipse  ut  venditem.  • 


w  Plaut.  Forsch.  pp.  152  ff. 


24 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


To  sum  up  the  argument,  we  are  thus  brought  to  the  conclusion 
first,  that  of  the  twelve  types  of  soliloquy  which  we  distinguished 
in  the  case  of  Plautus,  exclusive  only  of  the  first  and  last  classes, 
the  new  Greek  comedy  contained  examples  of  all;  second,  that 
soliloquies  in  New  Comedy  were  as  frequent,  and  occupied  pro- 
portionately as  large  a  part  of  the  play,  as  in  Latin;  third,  that 
in  New  Comedy  soliloquies  played  practically  the  same  part  in 
the  structure  as  in  Latin.  It  is  only  in  respect  to  the  tenth 
class,  the  topical-rhetorical  monologue,  that  we  are  reduced  to 
claiming  no  more  than  a  high  degree  of  probability;  for  all  the 
others  we  can  safely  claim  absolute  certainty. 

The  remnants  we  possess  of  New  Comedy  will  when  examined 
bear  out  these  conclusions  in  their  entirety.  Table  III  in 
the  appendix  contains  the  results  of  such  an  examination  of 
Menander's  'ETrtrpeTrovres,  UepLKeLpojjLevrj  and  2a/ita.  Through- 
out Section  I  we  referred  to  such  examples  as  there  are 
in  Menander  of  soliloquies  of  the  different  types.  All  are  repre- 
sented, again  exclusive  of  the  first  and  last  classes,  except  the 
soliloquy  of  exposition,  the  comic  soliloquy  and  the  rhetorical 
monologue. ^^  The  last  we  have  discussed  fully.  The  absence 
of  the  comic  soliloquy  can  only  mean,  as  we  have  already  sug- 
gested, in  connection  with  its  rarity  in  Terence,  that  Menander 
individually  avoided  it,  or  else  that  the  fragments  we  have  are 
all  from  plays  where  it  happened  not  to  occur,  such  plays  as 
Terence  by  preference  chose  as  his  originals.  The  soliloquy  of 
exposition  would  doubtless  be  found  if  we  had  preserved  the 
beginnings  of  the  plays,  since  it  is  found  in  Menander's  Teoipyos 
and  is  common  enough  in  Terence. ^°    The  only  striking  difference 

^^  The  occurrence  of  two  soliloquies  of  announcement  in  Menander  justifies 
our  conclusion  above  (p.  19)  that  their  absence  in  Terence  is  of  no  significance. 

"°  In  the  opinion  of  Prof.  Edward  Capps  of  Princeton  University,  Prof. 
A.  M.  Harmon,  now  of  Yale  University,  has  demonstrated  that  the  St.  Peters- 
burg fragment,  placed  by  Capps  in  Four  Plays  of  Menander  (Boston,  etc., 
1910)  after  line  408,  and  printed  by  Korte  as  Fabula  Incerta  II,  really  belongs 
to  the  irpoXoyos  of  the  ^ETnTpk-rrovret.  In  that  case  we  have  two  soliloquies  in 
the  irpoXoyos,  one  of  exposition,  one  of  moralizing.  Harmon  also  argued  that 
the  r61e  of  the  cook,  who  has  a  soliloquy  in  lines  391  ff,  also  belongs  to  the 
irpoXoyos.  The  results  of  his  study  were  not  published,  and  his  papers  are  still 
inaccessible,  because  of  the  intervention  of  the  war. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


25 


in  proportion  is  the  relatively  large  number  in  Menander  of 
soliloquies  for  characterization,  as  compared  to  the  Latin  come- 
dians, a  difference  which  is  perhaps  not  surprising. 

If  we  had  these  three  plays  complete,  the  results  of  an  examina- 
tion might  be  somewhat  different,  although  it  is  scarcely  con- 
ceivable that  they  could  be  fundamentally  so.  At  any  rate,  as 
they  stand,  the  average  number  of  soliloquies  to  a  play  and  the 
percentage  of  lines  of  soliloquy  in  the  total  number  of  lines  are 
higher  than  in  either  Plautus  or  Terence.^^  Moreover,  the  three 
plays  of  Plautus  that  may  be  attributed  to  Menander  show,  as 
we  have  pointed  out  above,  a  percentage  of  lines  of  soliloquy 
likewise  considerably  higher  than  the  average  for  Plautus,  so 
that  on  this  question,  at  least  for  Menander  individually,  all 
doubts  may  safely  be  dismissed.  In  Menander  the  proportion  of 
necessary  and  useful  soliloquies  is  50  per  cent,  in  Terence  46, 
in  Plautus  41 .  In  Menander  senex,  adulescens  and  slave  together 
have  85  per  cent  of  all  soliloquies,  in  Terence  83,  in  Plautus  80. 
Surely  these  facts  speak  plainly  enough  for  themselves. 

The  comic  fragments  we  have  used  as  much  as  possible  in 
Section  I  to  furnish  examples  of  different  types  of  soliloquy.  For 
all  questions  as  to  the  part  played  by  soliloquies  in  the  structure 
they  were  of  course  almost  useless.  At  most  all  they  could  be 
expected  to  prove  is  the  existence  in  New  Comedy  of  such  struc- 
turally unnecessary  soliloquies  as  those  of  moralizing  and  comedy. 
For  now  that  we  have  demonstrated  the  presence  of  such  solilo- 
quies by  more  reliable  evidence,  we  may  more  safely  take  the 
fragments  of  philosophizing  and  the  speeches  of  cooks  and  para- 
sites as  examples  of  soliloquy,  even  though  we  can  seldom  prove 
conclusively  that  they  were  soliloquies.  A  few  fragments  do, 
however,  really  supply  probable  examples  of  structurally  neces- 
sary soliloquies:  Menander  13  seems  a  parallel  to  Plaut.  Bacc. 
170  ff,  where  the  returned  traveler  greets  his  homeland,  and 
Antiphanes  206  and  Diphilus  33  to  Aul.  371  ff»  where  the  man 
returning  from  market  complains  of  high  prices. 

The  conclusions  that  we  have  thus  reached  may  perhaps  be 
further  confirmed  in  a  negative  way.  In  the  first  place,  if  we 
examine  the  comedies  of  Plautus  with  reference  to  the  authors 

71  The  average  percentage  in  Plautus  is  17,  in  Terence  12,  in  Menander  32. 


26 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


of  the  originals, ^2  we  find  that  in  the  Mercator,  the  Mostellaria 
and  the  Trinummus,  which  we  know  were  translations  of  Phile- 
mon, the  average  percentage  of  lines  of  soliloquy  in  the  total 
number  of  lines  is  23,  slightly  higher  than  the  average  for  the 
plays  from  Menander,  while  in  the  Rudens  and  the  Casina  of 
Diphilus^^  it  is  16,  somewhat  lower.  This  would  seem  to  indicate 
that,  even  though  the  figures  for  Menander,  or  for  the  plays  of 
Plautus  based  on  Menander,  are  higher  than  the  average  for 
all  the  Plautine  plays,  little  if  any  significance  can  be  attached 
to  this  fact.  For  if  we  conclude  that  Menander  did  rea  ly  use 
the  soliloquy  more  freely  than  the  ordinary  poet  of  New  Comedy, 
then  so  too,  we  must  conclude,  did  Philemon.  But  since  the 
average  for  Diphilus  is  not  only  lower  than  that  for  Menander 
and  Philemon,  but  also  a  little  lower  than  the  average  for  Plautus, 
while  the  two  plays  of  Diphilus  upon  which  the  average  is  based 
stand,  in  respect  to  number  of  soliloquies,  almost  at  opposite 
extremes  (there  are  only  nine  in  the  Casina  as  against  20  in  the 
Rudens),  it  seems  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that  none  of  the 
differences  matter  much,  so  long  as  we  find  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  soliloquy  in  New  Comedy  was  less  common  than  in  Plautus, 
— find,  that  is,  nothing  to  disturb  our  conclusion  that  in  this 
respect  new  Greek  comedy  and  Plautine  comedy  were  exactly 
alike.  The  one  play  of  Plautus  that  is  commonly  assigned  to  an 
origiral  of  Middle  Comedy,  i.e.,  the  Persa,^^  shows  a  percentage 
of  soliloquy  (12)  lower  than  the  percentage  we  have  found  in 
Menander,  Philemon  and  Diphilus,  and  lower  than  the  general 
average  in  Plautus,  but  the  difference  is  hardly  great  enough, 
nor  one  example  sufficient,  to  allow  us  to  base  thereon  any  infer- 
ence as  to  a  gradual  increase  in  the  use  of  soliloquy  throughout 
Middle  Comedy,  only  culminating  in  the  New  as  represented, 
e.g.,  by  Menander,  although  such  a  gradual  development  is 
plausible  and,  as  we  shall  soon  see  reason  to  think,  indeed 
probable.     In  the  second  place,  if  we  examine  the  plays  of 

'2  Leo  attempts  something  of  this  sort,  from  his  own  particular  point  of 
view,  in  Der  Monolog,  pp.  63  flf. 

"  Of  all  these  plays  except  the  Mostellaria  the  author  of  the  original  is 
named  in  the  prologue;  for  the  last  see  Hueflfner,  De  Plauti  comoediarum 
etc.,  p.  68. 

^*  See  Hueflfner,  pp.  70  flf. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


27 


Plautus  from  the  point  of  view  of  date  of  composition,  we  are 
brought  back  again  to  the  same  conclusion.  The  use  of  soliloquy 
does  not  depend  in  the  least  on  any  special  development  of 
Plautus's  own  technique  or  on  any  growth  of  his  originality.  For 
(to  take  a  few  easily  dated  examples)  in  the  Menaechmi  and  the 
Stichus,  both  early  plays,^^  the  percentage  of  lines  of  soliloquy 
is  14  and  23  respectively;  in  the  Poenulus,  the  Pseudolus  and  the 
Truculentus,  all  late,^^  respectively  7,  16  and  28. 

7»The  Menaechmi  can  be  dated  by  the  allusion  in  lines  408-409  to  King 
Hiero  of  Syracuse,  who  died  in  215,  as  still  living;  the  Stichus  is  assigned  by 
the  didascalia  to  200. 

'« The  Poenulus  is  placed  after  the  capture  of  Sparta  in  189  by  line  665^ 
the  previous  capture  in  222  being  out  of  the  question  because  of  the  frequent 
mention  in  the  play  of  Philippean  money,  which  came  into  use  first  in  194; 
the  Pseudolus  is  placed  in  191  by  the  didascalia,  and  the  Truculentus  classed 
with  it  as  a  production  of  Plautus's  old  age  by  Cicero  in  De  Senectute,  14,  50- 


IV.    THE   RELATION   BETWEEN   THE   CHORUS  AND 

THE  SOLILOQUY. 

If  we  are  to  account  for  the  part  played  by  the  soliloquy  in 
New  Comedy,  it  is  necessary  first  to  see  what  its  function  was  in 
Old  Comedy  and  tragedy,  where  its  use  was  still  conditioned 
by  the  presence  of  the  chorus.  Referring  to  our  definition  of 
soliloquy  in  the  introduction,  we  should  naturally  infer  that  in 
tragedy — to  consider  that  first, — so  far  as  concerns  the  chorus, 
a  soliloquy  can  occur  only  in  the  irpoXoyos,  or  thereafter  only 
when  it  would  be  dramatically  possible  for  a  character  to  ignore 
the  presence  of  the  chorus,  or  when  the  chorus  leaves  the  ^tage 
entirely.  The  other  alternative  that  we  mentioned  for  New 
Comedy,  i.e.,  that  a  character  should  without  ignoring  the  pres- 
ence of  another  still  ignore  the  possibility  of  conversation  with 
him,  is  scarcely  conceivable  in  the  case  of  a  chorus  that  is 
normally  present  throughout  the  whole  of  the  play  after  the 
irpoXoyos.  The  question  of  the  presence  of  a  second  character 
we  do  not  here  need  to  consider  at  all,  so  long  as  the  chorus  is 
present. 

This  inference  we  find  to  be  in  fact  correct.  In  tragedy 
soliloquies  are  already  used  in  the  irpoXoyos  by  Aeschylus 
and  Sophocles.^^  Elsewhere  they  use  the  soliloquy  only  where 
it  is  psychologically  and  dramatically  plausible  that  a  character 
should  ignore  the  presence  of  the  chorus.  The  few  examples  of 
such  soliloquies  are  all  of  this  type,  and  all  dramatically  well 
motivated:  lo's  frenzy,  the  greeting  of  Agamemnon's  herald  to 
the  fatherland,  Cassandra's  prophecy,  the  soliloquy  of  Ajax 
(where  he  ignores  Tecmessa  also)  and  Teucer's  soliloquy  over 
the  dead  body  of  his  brother.^^  These  are  the  only  examples 
before  Euripides.  The  only  other  case  is  the  soliloquy  of  Ajax 
alone  on  the  shore,  between  his  leaving  the  chorus  before  his 
tent  at  line  814  and  their  reappearance  on  the  shore  at  line  866.''^ 

"  The  only  cases  are  Aesch.  Prom.  88  fiF  (Prometheus),  Sept.  69  ff  (the 
prayer  of  Eteocles),  Agam.  i  ff  (the  watchman),  Eum.  i  ff  (the  priestess), 
id.  94  ff  (the  ghost  of  Clytaemnestra  to  the  sleeping  Furies);  Soph.  Trac.  i  ff 
(Deianeira),  Elec.  86  ff  (Electra). 

78  Aesch.  Prom.  566  ff  and  877  ff;  Agam.  503-523;  id.  1072  ff;  Soph.  Aj. 
646  ff;   id.  992-1027  respectively. 

"  The  presence  of  mutes  on  the  stage,  which  must  have  been  almost  con- 

28 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


29 


At  this  point  we  should  perhaps  call  attention  to  the  very 
common  confusion  of  soliloquy  and  apostrophe.  We  find  this 
already  in  the  address  to  the  fatherland  just  mentioned  from  the 
Agamemnon,  and  in  the  address  to  a  house  or  a  tomb,^^  which 
we  find  represented  in  New  Comedy  respectively  by  the  greeting 
to  the  fatherland  in  Plant.  Bacc.  170  ff  and  Menander  13^^  and 
by  the  farewell  to  the  ancestral  home  in  Plant.  Merc.  830  fif. 
Probably  all  these,  certainly  at  least  those  in  comedy,  we  may 
safely  call  soliloquies.  But  in  the  case  of  the  frequent  apos- 
trophes to  express  strong  emotion,  particularly  in  Sophocles, ^^ 
who,  as  Leo  remarks, ^^  used  the  soliloquy  mostly  for  irados,  it 
seems  impossible  to  say  that  the  presence  of  the  chorus  was 
really  ignored.  We  need  therefore  add  no  soliloquies  from  this 
source  to  those  just  enumerated. 

In  Aeschylus  and  Sophocles  it  is  important  to  observe  that  all 
these  soliloquies  are  carefully  motivated.  Not  to  speak  of  those 
that  occur  after  the  wpoXoyos,  where  in  every  instance  the  high 
tension  of  feeling  under  which  the  character  speaks  makes  the 
presence  of  the  chorus  inconsequential,  the  soliloquies  in  the 
irpoXoyos  also  are  each  one  thoroughly  natural  and  convincing. 
Euripides,  on  the  contrary,  almost  entirely  abandoned  dramatic 
motivation  for  soliloquies  in  the  irpoKoyos,  i.e.,  soliloquies  of 
exposition.  We  need  not  here  speak  of  the  typical  Euripidean 
prologue  delivered  by  a  god,  whether  the  god  reappears  in  the 
play  or  not.     To  consider,  then,  only  soliloquies  spoken  by  other 

tinuous  in  tragedy,  need  not  be  taken  into  account  in  this  connection,  as  it 
was  always  quite  natural  for  a  character  to  ignore  their  presence.  For  example, 
in  Eur.  Elec.  140  and  150  Electra  addresses  an  attendant  whose  presence  is 
proved  by  line  218,  and  yet  lines  1 12-166  are  clearly  a  soliloquy. 

«"  E.g.,  to  a  house  Eur.  Here.  Fur.  523  ff,  Orest.  356  ff,  Bacc.  1024  ff ;  to  a 
tomb  Hel.  1165  ff. 

*^  Also  in  Old  Comedy  by  a  new  fragment  of  the  A^^ot  of  Eupolis,  which 
may  be  a  soliloquy,  published  by  Korte  in  Hermes,  19 12,  pp.  276  ff  (Fragmente 
einder  Handschrift  der  Demen  des  Eupolis)  as  Iv,  of  which  lines  13-14  read: 

oj  777  iraTpcoa   Xatpe.   ae  yap  aaTd^ofiai 
Traacjp  iroKeoiv  kKirayXoTOLTrj  Kal  <}>L\TdTrf. 

«2  E.g.,  Phil.  1081  ff,  Elec.  1126  ff,  Trac  983  ff,  O.  T.  1391  ff;  in  the  case  of 
the  last  two  we  should  also  remember  the  influence  of  the  conventional  public 
or  semi-public  forms  of  lamentation. 

*3  Der  Monolog,  p.  13. 


30 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


characters,  we  find  that  only  in  the  Cyclops  is  both  the  presence 
and  the  speech  of  the  character  (Silenus)  in  the  irpoKoyos  moti- 
vated.^ In  the  Medea,  on  the  contrary,  wherein  Hnes  57-58^* 
the  nurse  even  states  her  motive  for  speaking  as  she  does  in  her 
soliloquy  in  lines  1-48,  yet  it  is  plain  that  her  only  purpose,  either 
in  coming  out  of  the  house  when  she  did  or  in  speaking  as  she 
did,  was  to  address  the  audience.  The  motivation  here  given  is 
not  only  no  longer  genuine,  as  Leo  shows  that  it  was  in  Homer, ^^ 
nor  even  dramatically  logical,  as  it  is  in  the  two  places  where  it 
is  adduced  in  Aeschylus, ^^  but  purely  conventional  and  wholly 
unreal,  as  it  always  is  wherever  it  is  found  in  Euripides. ^^  Pre- 
cisely the  same  may  be  said  of  the  same  motivation,  i.e.^  the 
address  to  the  elements,  with  the  added  motif  of  sleeplessness, 
that  we  find  in  Elec.  54  ff.  We  may  accordingly  be  sure  that 
whenever  we  find  this  motivation  in  comedy^^  it  is  likewise 
wholly  artificial,  and  conceals  but  slightly  a  speech  designed 
merely  for  the  benefit  of  the  audience.  The  case  is  the  same 
with  the  second  of  the  motivations  for  soliloquy,  i.e.,  the  address 
to  one's  self.     We  find  it  in  the  irpoXoyos  in  Euripides  in  Troi. 

8^  This  may  well  have  been  the  case  also,  certainly  in  respect  at  least  to 
motivation  of  the  presence  of  the  character,  with  the  soliloquy  that  we  know 
from  Dion.  Chrys.  59  opened  the  Philoctetes.  It  is  certainly  the  case  with  the 
monologue  of  Apollo  that  opens  the  newly  found  'Ixv^vral  I^arvpoi,  of  Sophocles 
(Pearson,  The  Fragments  of  Sophocles,  Cambridge,  191 7,  Vol.  I).  But  in  this 
case  it  is  questionable  if  Apollo's  speech,  announcing  the  loss  of  his  cattle  and 
a  reward  for  their  return,  is  not  rather  an  address  to  the  audience  after  the 
manner  of  Old  Comedy  than  properly  a  soliloquy;  for  a  genuine  soliloquy  in 
New  Comedy  under  somewhat  similar  circumstances  cf.  Plant.  Aul.  713  fT,. 
which  likewise  in  part  address  the  audience,  but  with  very  different  effect. 

^  wad*   tjmepoi  ^i'   virrjXBe  yfj  re  KOVpavC^ 

Xc^at  jjLoKovan  devpo  MrjSeLas  ruXas. 

^^  Der  Monolog,  pp.  3  ff. 

*^  Prom.  106-107,  Agam.  i  ff. 

88  Also  Andr.  91-95,  Elec.  54  ff,  Iph.  Taur.  42-43. 

*^  The  address  to  the  elements  is  illustrated  by  Philemon  79,  where  lines 
1-2  are  obviously  a  parody  of  Med.  57-58: 

wad'  X/jiepds  fi    vTrrjXde  yv  ^e  KovpavQ 
Xc^ai  /mXovtl  Tot<f>ov  cos  kaKtvaaa. 

With  the  added  motif  of  sleeplessness  it  is  found  in  Old  Comedy  in  Arist. 
Clouds  I  ff,  and  in  Menander  164,  and  is  unfavorably  criticized  in  Plaut^ 
Merc.  3-5. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancifnt  Comedy. 


31 


98-100,  though  more  commonly  in  soliloquies  after  the  7rp6Xo7os,®° 
also  in  Old  Comedy,  the  comic  fragments  and  Menander, ^^  and 
often  in  Latin  comedy,^^  in  the  form  of  either  a  simple  address  to 
the  self,  usually  by  name,^'  or  an  address  to  the  spirit  or  heart 
or  some  part  of  the  body.^*  The  third  possible  motivation, 
prayer  to  the  gods,  is  not  represented  by  any  one  soliloquy  in 
Euripides,  but  is  found  in  Aesch.  Sept.  69-77;  on  the  contrary, 
it  preserves,  even  where  it  occurs  in  comedy, ^^  something  of  its 
original  genuineness. 

We  may  therefore  conclude  that  soliloquies  spoken  by  a 
character  in  the  irpoXoyos  in  Euripides, ^^  whether  motivation  is 
assigned,  as  in  the  cases  we  have  cited,  or,  as  more  commonly, 
not,  are  in  fact  all  alike  not  dramatically  motivated  at  all,  but 
expressly  designed  for,  if  not  addressed  directly  to,  the  audience. 
That  is,  Euripides  has  here  taken  a  long  step  from  tragedy  as 
represented  by  Aeschylus  and  Sophocles  towards  New  Comedy. 
On  the  other  hand,  soliloquies  after  the  irpoXoyos  are  conditioned 
almost  as  strictly  as  in  Aeschylus  and  Sophocles  by  the  dramatic 
plausibility  of  the  character's  ignoring  the  chorus.^^  Sometimes 
in  such  cases  there  is  even  particularly  good  motivation,  as  in 
the  two  soliloquies  of  Hercules  and  Orestes  waking  from  sleep, ^^ 
and  the  ravings  of  Phaedra, ^^  which  also  are  imitated  in  comedy.^^^ 
But  on  the  two  occasions  where  between  irapodos  and  erodes  he 
gets  the  chorus  off  the  stage.  Ale.  747  fif  and  Hel.  386  ff ,  Euripides 
fills  up  the  interval  until  their  reappearance  largely  with  solilo- 
quies that  show  no  motivation  whatever:    in  the  Alcestis  with 

90  E.g.,  Med.  401  ff,  1056  ff,  1242  ff;   Ion  1041-1044;  Ale.  837  ff. 

91  E.g.,  Arist.  Achar.  480-489;  Alexis  186;  Anaxandrides  59;  Menander  2a/x. 

Ill'ii3,  134-141- 

«  E.g.,  Plant.  Asin.  249  ff,  Trin.  1008  ff. 

^^  E.g.,  Eur.  Med.  402,  Menander  Za/x.  iii.  Plant.  Trin.  1008. 

^E.g.,  Eur.  Ale.  837  (KapdiaKal  xeip),  Med.  1056  {Ovtie),  Ion  1041  (ttous); 
cf.  Plant.  Pseud.  1246  (pedes). 

^^E.g.,  Plaut.  Mil.  431-444,  Poen.  950-960. 

«« Med.  I  ff,  Andr.  91  ff,  Orest.  126  ff,  Troi.  98  ff,  Elec.  54  ff,  Ion  82  ff, 
Cycl.  I  ff. 

^"^  E.g.,  Med.  364-409,  1021-1080,  1242-1250. 

98  Here.  Fur.  1088  ff,  Orest.  211-214;  cf.  also  Soph.  Trac.  983  ff. 

••Hipp.  215-222,  228-231. 

"0  For  the  first  variety  cf.  Arist.  Clouds  25  ff ;  for  the  second  cf.  Plaut.  Men. 
835  ff  and  see  Ter.  prol.  Phor.  6-8. 


32 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


soliloquies  of  development  and  announcement,  in  the  Helen  with 
a  second  prologue  and  a  soliloquy  of  deliberation. ^°^  Here  the 
contrast  is  great  to  the  highly  dramatic  soliloquy  of  the  lone 
Ajax  in  the  only  case  outside  Euripides  where  the  chorus  is  thus 
removed  from  the  stage. ^^^ 

To  pass  now  to  the  consideration  of  soliloquy  and  chorus  in 
Old  Comedy,  we  find  in  Aristophanes  five  soliloquies  in  the 
irpoXoyos.^^^  Thereafter  we  should  expect  to  find  very  few  if  any, 
since  the  chorus  in  comedy  was  not  only  always  present,  as  in 
tragedy,  but  generally  took  a  far  larger  part  in  the  action  than 
in  tragedy.  In  the  first  nine  plays,  indeed,  we  find  only  Dicae- 
opolis'  address  to  his  heart  in  Achar.  480  H  and  Cinesias'  burlesque 
prayer  in  Lys.  973  ff  that  are  plainly  soliloquies  (both  of  com- 
ment). Perhaps  also  Socrates's  comment  in  Clouds  627  ff",  al- 
though dubious  in  character,  since  in  Old  Comedy  it  was  always 
possible  really  to  address  remarks  to  the  audience,  might  be 
reckoned  as  a  soliloquy.  But  since  between  the  first  nine  and 
the  last  two  of  the  extant  plays  of  Aristophanes  a  great  difference 
came  about  in  the  function  of  the  chorus,  we  might  expect  to 
find  a  corresponding  difference  in  the  use  of  soliloquy.  In  the 
Ecclesiazusae  the  chorus  is  absent  from  line  310  until  the  second 
wdpodos  beginning  at  line  478.  Nothing  is  written  for  it  after  line 
582  until  the  lines  of  the  coryphaeus  in  1127  ff,  thereafter  only 
the  closing  song  (1179-1182).  xopov  is  read  in  our  texts  at  lines 
729,  876,  iiii.i<^^  In  the  Plutus  no  part  is  written  for  it  after 
the  end  of  the  Trdpodos  at  line  315  except  the  lines  for  the  cory- 
phaeus in  328  ff,  631  ff,  962  ff,  and  the  closing  lines,  also  for 
coryphaeus  (1208-1209).  xopov  is  read  at  lines  321,  626,  770, 
801,  958,  1096.  It  is  obvious  that,  except  perhaps  at  the  be- 
binning  of  the  Ecclesiazusae,  the  chorus  in  these  two  plays  is 
no  longer  an  actor  at  all,  although  the  coryphaeus  still  is  to  a 
slight  degree.  The  chorus  itself,  except  in  Eccl.  310-478,  seems 
to  have  been  on  the  stage  throughout,  but  in  any  case  it  could 

i«i  Ale.  747  fif,  837  fif;    Hel.  386  flf,  483  ff  respectively. 

»<»  Aj.  815  ff. 

10'  Achar.  i  ff,  Clouds  i  ff,  41  ff,  60  fr,  Lys.  I  ff,  Eccl.  i  ff,  Plut.  i  ff.  It  is  a 
question  whether  or  not  the  monotogue  of  Trygaeus  in  Peace  150  ff  should  be 
included;   probably  not. 

i'**On  Xopov  and  its  significance  see  footnote  iii. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


33 


have  been  plausibly  ignored  by  a  character  almost  anywhere  in 
the  play  after  the  Tdpodos.^^^  In  point  of  fact,  already  in  the 
Frogs  the  chorus  is  hardly  an  actor,  but  that  fact  makes  no 
difference  so  far  as  soliloquies  go,  there  being  none  in  the  play. 
Did  the  same  fact  make  any  difference  in  the  last  two  plays? 
In  this  respect  they  are  apparently  different;  that  is,  the  effect 
of  the  removal  of  the  chorus  from  the  action  is  not  yet  consistent. 
For  in  the  Ecclesiazusae  there  are  four  soliloquies  during  its 
absence  from  the  stage,  or  after  its  withdrawal  from  the  action 
of  the  plot,^^^  while  in  the  Plutus  there  is  only  one.^^^  The 
choral  songs  of  these  two  plays,  except  for  the  wdpoSoL  and  the 
one  ode  at  the  beginning  of  the  dycov  of  the  Ecclusiazusae  (571- 
581),  are  therefore  only  what  Aristotle  calls  kn^oXLiia.^^^  The 
seclusion  of  the  chorus  in  comedy  from  the  action  was  accord- 
ingly a  gradual  process,  the  beginning  of  which  we  can  see  in 
the  Frogs,  the  continuation  in  the  Ecclesiazusae  and  the  Plutus, 
had  on  the  use  of  soliloquy  we  shall  now  proceed  to  examine; 
its  survival,  in  the  form  in  which  it  survived,  could  have  had  none. 
the  culmination  in  New  Comedy.  In  tragedy  too,  if  we  had 
specimens  extant  covering  the  first  quarter  of  the  fourth  century, 
we  should  expect  to  find  a  similar  process, ^°^  differing  only,  if 
the  Rhesus  is  typical  of  its  period,  in  being  carried  perhaps  not 

^^  Plutus  766-767 

nrj  vvv  /icXX'  en 
ws  avbpts  kyyvs  eiaip  t^Stj  tS>p  dvpwv. 
are  so  much  like  similar  references  in  New  Comedy  to  the  approach  of  the 
incidental  chorus,  e.g.,  Menander,  Fab.  Inc.  II,  33~34 

ucfji€v  COS  Kal  /xeipaKvWiccv  oxXos 
els  rbv  tottov  tls  ?pXe^'  viro^efipeynhoiv, 
that,  although  the  lines  in  the  Plutus  refer  not  to  the  chorus  proper  but  to  the 
incidental  band  of  revelers,  yet  it  is  easy  to  discern  in  them  a  step  towards  the 
later  use  of  the  chorus  itself  as  the  incidental  kuims,  which  had  to  some  extent 
already  been  anticipated  by  the  employment  of  the  auxiliary  chorus  in  the 
Frogfs. 

^^  See  Table  IV  in  the  appendix. 

^^'  I.e.,  802  flp,  which  is  addressed  to  the  audience,  but  clearly  resembles  the 
soliloquies  of  New  Comedy  more  than  it  resembles  Clouds  627-632,  to  which 
we  have  referred  above  (p.  32). 

!<>*  Poet.  1456  a.  On  the  whole  question  of  kn^okLfxa  see  Flickinger,  The 
Greek  Theater  and  Its  Drama  (Chicago,  1918),  pp.  144  ff. 

!•>'  Flickinger  (p.  146)  calls  attention  to  the  occurrence  of  xopov  in  a  new 
fragment  of  a  Medea  of  the  fourth  century. 


34 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


quite  so  far.  For  Aristotle  says  that  Agathon  used  e/zjSoXt/xa, 
and  before  him  we  can  see  how  Euripides,  even  though  that  term 
is  not  appHcable  to  any  of  his  choral  odes,  gradually  removed 
the  chorus  from  participation  in  the  action,  and  in  one  case  at 
least,  i.e. J  the  Suppliants,  even  employed  a  chorus  that  had  no 
more  connection  with  the  plot  in  personnel  than  it  had  in 
action. ^1° 

In  the  last  two  plays  of  Aristophanes  we  may  say,  then,  that 
no  part  written  for  the  chorus  was  published  by  the  author,  or 
at  any  rate  retained  in  the  text  by  scholars,  except  the  irdpodoL 
and  one  other  ode  (Eccl.  571-581).  In  New  Comedy  so  far 
as  we  know  no  part  whatever  was  published,  perhaps  none  even 
written  by  the  poet  himself,  for  the  chorus.  The  question  of 
what  the  chorus  actually  was  in  New  Comedy  we  have  here  no 
occasion  to  discuss,^^^  nor  the  question  of  what  traces  of  it,  if  any, 
may  be  found  in  Latin  comedy.^^^  Suffice  it  to  say  that  in  the 
Greek  plays  it  took  no  part  in  the  action  and  appeared  on  the 
stage  only  in  the  intervals  set  for  its  performances,  while  in  the 
Latin  even  its  appearance  at  all  in  a  few  plays  is  open  to  doubt. 
A  trace  of  the  old  chorus  is  doubtless  to  be  found  in  Plant.  Rud. 
290-305,  where  a  band  of  fishermen  recite  what  reminds  us  of  a 
irapoSos,  but  only  through  the  mouth  of  the  single  leader  who 
speaks  for  them  in  the  following  dialogue  (305-324).  Perhaps 
Menander  547-548  is  similar,  but  these  two  are  the  only  such 
cases,  unless  we  include  some  of  the  scenes  where  groups  of 
supernumeraries  appear.^^^  What  effect  the  loss  of  the  chorus 
had  on  the  use  of  soliloquy  we  shall  now  proceed  to  examine; 
its  survival,  in  the  form  in  which  it  survived,  could  have  had  none. 

"•'This  is  practically  a  typical  chorus  of  New  Comedy,  at  least  in  so  far 
as  its  r61e  in  the  play  is  concerned.  The  chorus  in  Aristophanes's  Plutus  falls 
midway  between  this  chorus  and  that  of  New  Comedy. 

"^  See  Leo,  Der  Monolog,  pp.  39  flF. 

Conrad,  Technique  of  Continuous  Action,  etc.,  introduction  and  Chapter  V. 

Legrand-Loeb,  The  New  Greek  Comedy. 

Flickinger,  The  Greek  Theater  and  Its  Drama. 

^^2 See  Conrad;  also  Flickinger,  xopov  in  Terence's  Heauton,  etc.,  Class. 
Phil.  7,  pp.  24  ff. 

"'  Conrad  gives  a  list  of  such  scenes  on  p.  76,  note  12. 


V.    THE   CAUSES   OF   THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE 
STRUCTURALLY  USEFUL  SOLILOQUY. 


The  soliloquies  that  we  have  been  enumerating  from  tragedy 
and  Old  Comedy  are  all  of  the  necessary  or  useful  classes.  In 
tragedy,  not  to  speak  of  soliloquies  of  exposition  in  the  wpoXoyos, 
we  have  found  soliloquies  of  development,  announcement  and 
deliberation.^^'*  Euripides  especially  favored  the  purely  infor- 
mative or  explanatory  soliloquy  in  the  irpoXoyos,  which  obviously 
anticipated  the  type  as  it  exists  unmotivated  in  New  Comedy, 
as  opposed  to  the  more  dramatic  soliloquy  represented,  for 
example,  by  Aesch.  Prom.  88  ff.  Euripides  also,  when  he  could 
get  the  chorus  off  the  stage,  i.e.,  in  the  Alcestis  and  the  Helen, 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  quick  to  take  advantage  of  t^'^  situation  to 
employ  the  soliloquy.  His  motive  we  can  easily  guess:  he  was 
aiming  always  for  immediate  effect  on  his  audience,  and  the 
soliloquy  is  a  convenient  device  to  save  time  and  trouble.  This 
in  particular  because  the  effect  he  desired  was  to  be  got,  not 
through  dramatic  action,  but  chiefly  through  irdOos  of  situation: 
the  soliloquy  accordingly  helped  to  dispose  as  quickly  and 
expeditiously  as  possible  of  the  necessary  details  of  plot,  leaving 
him  free  to  elaborate  those  parts  of  the  play  that  really  interested 
him.  What  he  would  have  done  with  soliloquies  of  all  types  if 
he  could  have  got  rid  entirely  of  the  chorus  we  can  imagine, 
especially  from  what  he  actually  did  with  the  monody:  doubtless 
precisely  what  we  know  that  the  poets  of  New  Comedy  did.  In 
Old  Comedy,  moreover,  we  have  seen  a  development  analogous 
to  that  in  tragedy,  which  likewise  favored  the  growth  of  the 
soliloquy  in  New  Comedy.  In  the  first  nine  plays  of  Aristophanes 
we  found  three  soliloquies  of  exposition  in  the  TrpoXoyos,  in  the 
last  two  plays  one  each,  while  elsewhere  in  the  last  two  there  are 
three  of  development,  one  of  comment  and  one  of  deliberation^^^ 
against  only   three  of  comment  in   the  first  nine   together.^^^ 

"*  E.g.,  Eur.  Ale.  747  ff ;  id.  837  ff ;  Hel.  483  ff  and  Med.  364  ff  respectively. 
"**  Eccl.  311  ff,  id.  377  ff  and  Plut.  802  ff;  Eccl.  938  ff;  id.  746  ff  respectively. 
"« Achar.  480  ff.  Clouds  627  ff,  Lys.  973  ff. 

35 


36 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


But  it  IS  probable  that  on  New  Comedy  Euripides  was  the  greater 
influence  in  this  particular  if  he  was  in  general  the  greater 
influence ;^^^  his  obvious  influence  in  the  related  matter  of  the 
prologue  is  especially  strong  evidence  in  this  connection. ^^* 

In  so  far,  then,  as  New  Comedy  was  subject  to  the  influence  of 
Euripides,  then  especially  in  so  far  as  it  was  a  comedy  of  manners 
it  was  especially  subject  to  his  influence  towards  development 
of  the  plot  by  means  of  soliloquies.  On  the  other  hand,  in  so 
far  as  New  Comedy  was  interested  in  plot  as  distinct  from 
characterization,  we  might  have  expected  it  to  return  to  the 
carefully  wrought  manner  of  exposition  of  Sophocles.  Needless 
to  say,  it  was  interested  in  plot  far  more  than  either  Euripides 
or  Old  Comedy,  yet  it  developed  for  the  exposition  of  the  plot 
the  very  means  that  Euripides  had  begun  to  employ  to  escape 
tbe  necessity  of  troubling  himself  with  the  action  and  to  leave 
himself  free  to  elaborate  the  situation.  This  fact  is  to  be  ex- 
plained by  several  general  considerations,  to  which  it  is  necessary 
only  to  call  attention,  without  amplifying  greatly. 

In  the  first  place,  the  audience  knew  in  general  the  plot  of  a 
tragedy  as  soon  as  they  heard  its  title,  while  one  of  the  comedian's 
chief  aims  was  necessarily  novelty  of  plot.^*®  Antiphanes  com- 
plains of  this  disadvantage  under  which  the  comic  poet  labored 
in  a  clever  fragment  (191),  in  which  he  names  as  examples  of  the 
tragedians'  old  stock  in  trade  Oedipus,  Alcmaeon,  Adrastus, 
Peleus,  Teucer.  Incidentally,  this  suggests  the  possibility  that 
Euripides  was  somewhat  influenced  in  his  choice  of  the  explana- 
tory prologue  by  his  preference  both  for  less  known  myths  such  as 

"^  As  a  further  slight  bit  of  evidence  for  what  has  come,  under  Leo's 
influence,  to  pass  for  an  established  fact,  we  may  cite  here  (not  to  quote 
Quintilian's  familiar  comment  in  10,  i,  69,  nor  the  quotations  of  Euripides  in 
Menander  'Eirir.  583-584  and  Diphilus  60,  lines  2-3,  nor  the  reference  to  his 
Alcmena  in  Plaut.  Rud.  86)  especially  the  phrase  6  Kar&xpvcros  'EvpiiriSrjs  in 
Diphilus  60,  line  i. 

Prescott  in  Class.  Phil.  13,  pp.  113  ff,  argues  against  what  he  thinks  the  too 
quick,  too  careless  and  too  inclusive  acceptance  of  Leo's  theory  of  Euripidean 
influence. 

1'*  The  question  of  the  prologue  and  Euripidean  influence  Leo  has  discussed 
fully  in  Plaut.  Forsch.,  IV. 

"»  Cf.  Plaut.  Capt.  53  flF,  especially  line  55 

non  pertractate  facta  est  neque  item  ut  ceterae. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


37 


(to  cite  only  extant  plays)  the  stories  of  the  Ion  and  the  Iphigeneia 
in  Tauris,  and  for  variants  and  innovations  in  well-known  myths, 
such  as  those  of  the  Helen  and  the  Electra,  which  would  at  once 
give  him  the  greater  freedom  in  plot  which  we  have  seen  that 
he  desired  and  yet  require  more  initial  explanation. 

In  the  second  place,  if,  with  this  general  fact  as  to  the  plot  of 
all  comedies  in  mind,  we  take  into  account  the  conditions  of 
performance,  we  shall  see  at  once  how  and  why  the  poets  of  New 
Comedy,  already  subject  to  the  influences  that  we  have  observed 
from  tragedy  and  Old  Comedy,  were  naturally  driven  to  employ 
the  soliloquy  as  they  did.  We  might  almost  say  that  irrespective 
of  influence  from  the  older  drama  they  would  have  been  driven 
to  adopt  some  such  device.  The  play  was  performed  in  an 
out-of-door  theater,  where  there  is  plenty  of  evidence  to  show 
how  difficult  it  was  to  get  a  hearing,  especially  in  Rome,^^** 
and  how  quick  the  audience  was  to  show  its  displeasure. ^^^ 
Hence  the  damnable  iteration  of  some  of  Plautus's  prologues, 
e.g.f  the  prologue  of  the  Menaechmi.  Hence  also  the  soliloquies 
of  announcement  and  deliberation  anticipating  development, 
and  the  vast  number  of  soliloquies  of — to  us — useless  com-^ 
ment.^22  Moreover,  the  attention  not  only  of  the  ears  but  also 
of  the  eyes  must  be  held  constantly,  and  in  a  theater  that  was 
comparatively  huge;  only  in  such  a  theater  under  such  condi- 
tions is  such  a  soliloquy  as  that  in  Mil.  200  ff  conceivable. ^^^ 
Again,  there  was  no  particular  scenery,  especially  little  if  any 
possibility  of  changing  scenery:    hence,  beside  the  general  in- 

^20  E.g.f  consider  the  prologues  of  several  of  Plautus's  plays,  especially  the. 
Captivi,  and  the  fate  of  Terence's  Hecyra. 
"^  E.g.,  see  Antiphanes  191,  lines  17-21, 

TTCLvra  5ct 
ivpttv,   dvSfiaTa  Kaiva,   tol  du^Krjfxeva 
Trp&Ttpov,  TO.  vxjv  TrapSpTa,  riiv  KaTa<rTpo<f>'fiVf 
rifv  hafioXriv.      6.v  tv  rt,  rohrosv  trapaklTr-Q 
Xpk/jirjs  TLS  ^  ^€L8(t}P  Tis,  (KavpiTTeTal. 
"2  Legrand  discusses  (pp.  430  fi)  the  necessity  of  this  reiteration.     Henry 
Ward  Beecher  remarked  that  you  must  tell  an  audience  the  same  thing  three 
times,  once  that  it  is  going  to  happen,  then  that  it  is  happening,  finally  that  it 
has  happened,  after  which  some  of  them  may  understand.     Many  of  the 
soliloquies  that  we  have  called  structurally  useless  may  have  been  very  neces- 
sary in  their  way,  after  all. 
"'  See  p.  5. 


38 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


congruity  of  having  to  show  all  the  action  in  a  scene  representing 
a  public  place,  the  impossibility  also  of  acting  and  the  necessity 
of  narrating  so  much  important,  even  essential,  action,  which  in 
the  modern  theater  would  not  occur  ofif  stage  at  all.  So,  for  ex- 
ample, in  the  Rudens,  the  speech  in  lines  i6o  ff,  which,  as  we  have 
remarked  (page  4),  closely  resembles  a  soliloquy,  represents  a 
scene  at  the  sea-shore,  the  soliloquies  in  lines  559  ff  and  615  ff  a 
scene  in  the  temple,  and  the  soliloquy  in  lines  892  ff  a  scene  in 
Daemones'  house.  Even  Shakespeare's  simple  sign-board  would 
have  relieved  the  ancient  comedian  marvelously,  still  without 
requiring  the  niusance  of  scenery  and  scene-shifting,  or  over- 
taxing the  imagination  of  the  audience  more  than  Sophocles 
overtaxed  it  by  requiring  them  to  see  the  stage  in  the  Ajax 
first  as  a  camp,  then  as  a  sea-shore.  Finally,  there  seem  to  have 
been  no  distinct  individual  costumes, ^^'^  and  there  were  certainly 
no  programs:  hence  the  necessity  which  so  many  soliloquies 
serve  of  announcing  the  entrance  of  a  new  character.^25 

All  these  general  considerations,  it  is  important  to  remember, 
must  be  taken  in  connection  with  the  loss  of  the  chorus,  by  which, 
so  far  as  concerns  the  soliloquy,  their  influence  and  effect  was 
largely  conditioned.  We  have  seen  that  it  was  in  the  irpoXoyos, 
before  the  appearance  of  the  chorus,  that  tragedy  and  Old 
Comedy  chiefly  employed  the  soliloquy,  i.e.,  for  exposition. 
Elsewhere  the  chorus  was  normally  present,  both  to  speak  and 
to  be  spoken  to.  Many  soliloquies  of  comment  are  obviously 
the  equivalent  of  the  running  commentary  on  the  action  that 
the  old  chorus  supplied,  which  was  in  reality,  doubtless  more  than 
we  are  apt  to  think,  for  the  benefit  of  the  audience.^^^  On  the 
other  hand,  everything  in  the  development  of  the  plot  that  was 
managed  by  address  to  or  dialogue  with  the  chorus  was  left  in 
New  Comedy  to  take  the  form  either  of  monologue — i.e.j  an 
undisguised  appeal  to  the  audience — or  of  dialogue  with  a  char- 

***  See  C.  Saunders,  Costume  in  Roman  Comedy  (Diss.  New  York,  1909); 
e.g.,  p.  47,  on  the  confusion  of  costume  between  two  adulescentes  in  the  same 
play. 

12*  E.g.,  Plaut.  Amph.  1005-1008.  See  W.  Koch,  De  personarum  comi- 
carum  introductione  (Diss.  Breslau,  1914).  Many  of  these  introductions 
were  of  course  not  soHloquies  but  asides  or  parts  of  the  dialogue. 

«« E.g.,  Pseud.  667  ff. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


39 


acter  to  be  found  to  replace  the  chorus.  In  the  wpoXoyos  it  was 
possible  to  employ  a  wpoacoTrop  wporaKTiKov,  as  Terence  preferred  to 
do,^2^  but  elsewhere  it  was  not  so  easy  to  invent  a  character 
that  was  at  once  in  the  action  and  yet  not  of  it,  although  Terence 
attempted  this  also  at  least  once.^^^  Hence  it  is  no  wonder  that 
the  poets  of  New  Comedy  never  consistently  made  any  attempt 
to  limit  their  employment  of  the  structurally  useful  soliloquy, 
not  even,  so  far  as  we  know,  an  attempt  on  such  a  small  scale 
as  Terence  did  really  make. 

The  soliloquy  of  development  in  particular  often  plainly  repre- 
sents the  messenger's  narrative  in  tragedy. ^^^  The  considerable 
proportion  of  such  narratives  that  are  addressed  to  the  chorus 
alone^^^  is  significant  of  what  would  naturally  happen  when  the 
chorus  disappeared.  Even  in  comedy,  to  be  sure,  such  soliloquies 
are  occasionally  motivated, ^^^  but  far  more  often  not,  whereas, 
on  the  contrary,  Aeschylus  and  Sophocles  were  usually  careful 
even  to  motivate  those  narratives  where  the  mere  presence  of 
the  chorus  was  not  dramatically  sufificient.^^^  g^t  Euripides  was 
content  to  let  his  messengers  address  the  chorus  without  further 
motivation, — the  chorus  ostensibly,  the  audience  really, — being 
here  again  the  precursor  of  New  Comedy.  It  is,  however,  not 
only  in  respect  to  the  messenger's  narrative  that  the  soliloquy  of 
development  largely  owes  its  existence  to  the  loss  of  the  chorus. 
Another  excellent  illustration  is  furnished  by  a  comparison  of 
the  manner  in  which  the  different  poets  used  dreams  for  dramatic 
purposes. ^^  In  Aesch.  Pers.  176  fif  Atossa  recounts  to  the  chorus 
a  dream   she   has   had;    in   Choe.   527   ff   the  chorus   recounts 

"'  See  footnote  55. 

^28  Don.  on  Ter.  Eun.  539:  Bene  inventa  persona  est  cui  narret  Chaerea,  ne 
unus  diu  loquatur,  ut  apud  Menandrum. 

^^^  On  the  general  topic  of  narratives  in  tragedy  and  comedy  see  E.  Fraenkel, 
De  media  et  nova  comoedia  quaestiones  selectae  (Diss.  Gottingen,  1912) , 
Chapter  I. 

130  Aesch.  Sept.  791  ff;  Soph.  Aj.  719  ff,  O.  T.  1237  ff,  O.  C.  1586  ff;  Eur. 
Iph.  Taur.  1284  ff,  Bacc.  1043  ff.  Here.  Fur.  922  ff,  Ion  1122  ff,  Ale.  152  ff, 
Rhes.  756  ff. 

1"  E.g.,  Men.  'Ettit.  202  ff,  Plaut.  Bacc.  368  ff,  Ter.  Adel.  610  ff. 

"2  E.g.,  Aesch.  Prom.  441-446,  Soph.  Trac.  531-535. 

^''  On  this  general  subject  see  W.  S.  Messer,  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek 
Tragedy,  New  York,  19 18. 


40 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


Clytaemnestra's  dream  to  Orestes;  in  Soph.  Elec.  417  ff  Chryso- 
themis  tells  Clytaemnestra's  dream  to  Electra  and  the  chorus; 
in  Eur.  Hec.  65  ff  Hecuba  tells  the  chorus  her  own  dream.  In 
all  these  cases  the  chorus  either  acts  as  audience  or  itself  speaks 
through  the  coryphaeus.  In  Iph.  Taur.  42  ff,  however,  Iphigeneia 
recounts  her  dream  in  a  soliloquy.  A  specious  motivation,  to 
be  sure,  is  assigned, ^^^  but  Plaut.  Merc.  225  ff  and  Rud.  593  ff 
show  that  in  New  Comedy  even  the  pretext  was  abandoned  and 
the  dreams  told  quite  frankly  to  the  audience.  Old  Comedy 
supplies  one  instance  of  a  dream,  told  and  interpreted  in  the 
dialogue  of  the  two  slaves  in  Wasps  13  ff,  a  method  imitated  by 
Plautus  in  Cure.  260  ff,  where  the  cook  interprets  the  dream  that 
the  procurer  tells  him.  But  here  again  Euripides,  not  Old 
Comedy,  seems  to  have  set  the  standard  for  New  Comedy. 

The  technique  of  the  structurally  necessary  or  useful  soliloquy 
we  accordingly  see  that  New  Comedy  owed  rather  more  largely 
to  Euripides  than  to  Old  Comedy,  even  though  such  soliloquies 
are  actually  more  numerous  in  Aristophanes  than  in  Euripides. 
There  was,  however,  one  very  important  inheritance  of  New 
Comedy  from  Old,  i.e.,  the  liberty  of  the  dramatist  to  address 
the  audience  directly.  We  have  seen  that  Euripides  in  practice 
took  the  same  liberty,  sometimes  with  an  attempt  at  motivation, 
usually  without,  but  only  in  the  wpoXoyos  or  thereafter  when  the 
chorus  had  been  removed  from  the  stage.*^^  The  poet  in  Old 
Comedy  had  this  liberty  throughout  the  play.  Not  to  mention 
the  parabasis,  we  find  four  monologues  in  Aristophanes  addressed 
by  a  character  specifically  to  the  audience  that  can  not  possibly 
be  called  soliloquies. ^^^  Then  again  we  find  an  address  to  the 
audience  such  as  Plut.  802  that  precisely  resembles  a  soliloquy 
of  New  Comedy.  The  decisive  factor  in  the  interval  is  of  course 
the  disappearance  of  the  chorus.  It  is  this  influence  from  Old 
Comedy  that  doubtless  chiefly  explains  the  indifference  to  dra- 
matic motivation  that  characterizes  the  soliloquies  of  New 
Comedy.  And  not  only  indifference  to  motivation:  for  even 
cases  where  the  audience  is  addressed  quite  gratuitously  are 
fairly  common,  which  can  only  be  explained  by  reference  to  such 

"4  See  footnote  88. 

"5  The  best  example  is  the  second  prologue  in  Hel.  386  ff. 

*»«  Knights  50  flf,  Wasps  54  ff,  Peace  50  flf,  Birds  30  ff. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


41 


a  soliloquy  as  Plut.  802  ff,  which  in  turn  had  developed  from 
such  a  monologue  as  the  four  just  cited  from  the  earlier  plays. 
This  address  to  the  audience  we  find  in  Menander,!^^  and  in 
Latin  comedy  it  occasionally  extends  to  include  an  entire  solilo- 
quy  138  Finally,  it  is  the  combination  of  these  influences  from 
Euripides  and  Old  Comedy  that  leads  to  such  anomalous 
soliloquies  as  Plaut.  Merc,  i  ff  and  Mil.  79  ff,  where  the  character 
even  steps  out  of  the  play  entirely  to  address  the  audience  about 
the  play  in  which  he  is  a  character.  There  can  hardly  have  been 
anything  precisely  like  these  two  monologues  in  new  Greek 
comedy,  but  there  were  surely  precedents  similar  enough  to 
warrant  Plautus  in  taking  still  a  little  greater  liberty. 

^"  E.g.,  Zafji.  54,  114,  338;   see  Leo,  Der  Monolog,  pp.  79  ff. 
"« E.g.,  Plaut.  Stich.  673-682,  Ter.  Phor.  465-470. 


VI.    THE  CAUSES  OF  THE   DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE 
STRUCTURALLY  USELESS  SOLILOQUY. 

So  far  we  have  considered  only  the  structurally  necessary  or 
useful  soliloquies,  i.e.,  those  of  exposition,  development,  an- 
nouncement, deliberation,  together  with  many  of  particular  com- 
ment. We  have  left  to  consider  the  structurally  useless  solilo- 
quies, i.e.,  those  of  more  general  comment,  which  verge  upon 
those  of  moralizing,  and  finally  the  comic  and  topical-rhetorical 
monologues.  Here  it  will  be  plain  that  the  freedom  in  addressing 
the  audience  inherited  from  Old  Comedy  was  far  more  im- 
portant. For  here  we  are  dealing  with  the  soliloquies  that  most 
nearly  reproduced  the  parabasis  and  the  <rTd(7t/xa,  perhaps  to 
some  extent  the  irapohos  also.  Indeed,  save  personal  invective 
and  political  propaganda  there  is  scarcely  a  choral  element  from 
Old  Comedy,  be  it  moralizing  ethical  or  social,  rhetorical  conceit 
or  incidental  farce  and  horse-play,  that  is  not  represented  in  the 
soliloquies  of  New  Comedy. 

The  resemblance  between  the  soliloquy  of  the  running  slave 
or  parasite  and  a  typical  irapodos  of  Old  Comedy,  while  perhaps 
not  close,  is  surely  plain  enough.  In  particular  the  usual  threats 
against  the  by-standers^^^  suggest  strongly  the  pugnacious  atti- 
tude in  which  the  chorus  enters  in  the  Acharnians,  Knights  and 
Wasps.  Again,  the  chorus  in  the  Acharnians  is  hunting  for  the 
missing  culprit  just  as  the  slave  is  always  looking  for  his  master 
or  the  parasite  for  his  patron.^^°  The  slave  is  always  in  a  hurry, 
just  like  the  chorus  in  the  Wasps,^^^  and,  like  the  chorus  in  the 

"9  E.g.,  Plaut.  Capt.  791  flf,  Cure.  280  flf,  Stich.  285  ff,  Amph.  984-985- 
"0  Cf.  Achar.  204-205 

rfide  xas  irrov,  8UaK€,  Kal  rov  avbpa  irvvd&vov 
tG3v  oSoLiropiov  air&vTcov, 
and  Plaut.  Merc.  128 

domin  an  foris  dicam  esse  erum  Charinum? 
"1  Cf .  Wasps  230 

Xcopet,  irphfiaiv    eppcofikvoos.     w  Koifila,  0pa8{;v€is', 
and  Plaut.  Merc.  13 

abige  abs  te  lassitudinem,  cave  pigritiae  praevorteris. 

42 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


43 


Acharnians,  often  complains  of  weariness  and  exhaustion. ^^^  At 
least  this  type  of  comic  soliloquy,  accordingly,  betrays  some  of 
the  common  features  of  the  irdpodos.^^^ 

The  (TTaffLfjLa  of  Old  Comedy,  being  in  the  nature  of  interludes, 
were  generally  replaced  in  New  by  the  choral  interludes,  referred 
to  as  /cco/xot  in  the  fragments,  that  filled  the  breaks  in  the  action 
at  points  such  as  those  where  often  xopov  now  occurs  in  the  text. 
But  some  soliloquies  of  comic  or  rhetorical  character  may  also 
well  represent  the  old  aTaainov.  For  example,  the  rhetorical 
character  of  the  soliloquy  in  Plaut.  Pseud.  574  ff  lends  plausi- 
bility to  Conrad's  suggestion^^^  that  the  tibicen  of  line  573a 
merely  played  a  prelude  to  Pseudolus'  monody,  and  that  the 
real  interlude  was  the  monody  itself,  not  the  instrumental  solo. 
Again,  ^Leo  points  out  ^^^  that  the  parasite's  monologue  in  Capt. 
461-497,  standing  as  it  does  between  his  previous  exit  at  line 
191  and  his  immediate  exit  again  at  line  497,  and  consisting 
entirely  of  incidental  comedy  that  does  nothing  to  forward  the 
plot,  partakes  largely  of  the  nature  of  an  interlude.  He  makes 
the  same  suggestion  also  in  regard  to  the  soliloquy  of  puer  id. 
909  ff,  which  ends,  as  lines  461  ff  begin,  an  act  of  the  play.^^ 
Other  possible  examples  might  be  added:  the  soliloquy  of  the 
parasite  in  Men.  446  ff,  of  the  dutiful  slave  in  Aul.  587  ff  and 
Most.  858  ff,  and  a  number  of  soliloquies  of  more  general  moraliz- 
ing^^^  and  monodies  of  more  general  comment. ^^^  All  these 
examples  satisfy  the  two  tests  that  we  should  necessarily  require 
to  suggest  that  a  soliloquy  reproduces  the  effect  of  the  old 

"2  Cf.  Achar.  219-220 

VVV    5'    €7r€t5l7    GTippOV    1]8rj    TOVfMOV    aVTLKVTflJLLOU 

Kal  TaXau{>  AaKpareidj]  to  tr/ceXos  fiapvptTai. 
and  Plaut.  Merc.  123-124 

genua  hunc  cursorem  deserunt; 
peril,  seditionem  facit  lien,  occupat  praecordia. 
"'  Of  the  apparent  7rdpo5os  in  Rud.  290  ff  we  have  spoken  on  p.  25. 
^**  Technique  of  Continuous  Action,  etc.,  p.  79. 
1**  Der  Monolog,  p.  59. 

"®  It  should  be  remembered  that  Leo  is  bent  upon  showing  wherever  he 
can  that  the  acts  begin  or  end  or  both  with  a  monologue  of  one  type  or  another, 
so  that  most  of  his  examples  could  not  possibly  be  regarded  as  descended 
from  the  <TTd<nna  of  Old  Comedy. 
^*^  E.g.,  Merc.  817  ff,  Pers.  449  flf. 
"8£.g.,  Bacc.  1076  fT,  Cist.  203  ff. 


44 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


aTaaifjLov:  first,  In  respect  to  position,  they  occur  at  a  break  in 
the  action,  i.e.,  at  the  beginning  or  end  of  an  act;  second,  in 
respect  to  content,  they  are  either  general  or  incidental,  never 
an  integral  part  of  the  structure  of  the  play. 

But  it  is  the  parabasis  of  Old  Comedy  that  is  most  fully 
reproduced  in  the  soliloquies  of  New,  especially  of  course  in  what 
we  have  called  soliloquies  of  moralizing.  There  is  in  Plautus 
one  soliloquy,  i.e.,  Cure.  462-486,  that  we  might  almost  call  a 
parabasis,  just  as  we  have  called  Rud.  290  if  a  TrapoBos.  It  is 
delivered  in  the  middle  of  the  play  by  the  choragus,  who  is  not  an 
actor  at  all,  and  consists  entirely  of  general  comment  without  the 
slightest  connection  with  the  play.  But  because  of  its  purely 
Roman  content,  and  because  in  its  local  allusions  anachronisms 
have  been  suspected,  its  authenticity  has  been  called  into  serious 
question. ^^^  It  is  therefore  unsafe  for  us  to  use  it  as  an  example, 
but  fortunately,  as  will  soon  appear,  we  do  not  really  need  it. 

The  typical  feature  of  the  parabasis  was  the  direct  address  to 
the  audience  by  the  chorus,  which  for  the  moment  laid  aside 
their  role  in  the  play  and  became  merely  the  mouthpiece  of  the 
poet.^^°  We  should  therefore  expect  to  find  in  soliloquies  de- 
scended from  the  parabasis  these  two  features:  first,  direct 
address  to  the  audience  (which  of  itself  is  no  more  than  we  have 
observed  in  soliloquies  of  other  types) ;  second,  either  some  gen- 
eral topic  not  particularly  if  at  all  connected  with  the  plot  or 
situation  of  the  play,  or  else  allusion  within  the  play  to  the  play 
itself,  since  the  poet  in  the  parabasis  may  speak  as  freely  of  the 
play  in  which  the  parabasis  occurs  as  of  any  other  subject.  To 
consider  the  latter  first,  the  plea  for  the  spectators'  favor,  which, 
while  it  is  found  elsewhere  in  Old  Comedy,  is  most  characteristic 
of  the  parabasis,^"  we  find  represented  in  New  Comedy,  not  to 
mention  the  prologues  of  Plautus,  in  the  monologue  of  "Ayvo.a 
in  Menander  Uept,K.  50-51,  and  in  the  address  to  the  spectators 

"»Its  authenticity  is  denied  by  H.  Jordan  in  Hermes  1880,  pp.  116  flf, 
but  defended  by  G.  Friedrich  in  Jahrb.  Klass.  Phil.  1891,  pp.  708  ff. 

"<»  On  the  question  of  the  costume  of  the  chorus  during  the  parabasis  see 
Poppelreuter,  De  comoediae  Atticae  primordiis  particulae  duae  (Diss.  Berlin, 

1893),  pp.  34  ff. 

"i£.g.,  Clouds  518  ff. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


45 


which  is  so  common  at  the  end  of  Plautus's  plays,^^^  ^nd  is  found 
also  in  Menander  887.  Discussion  of  the  comic  art  such  as  we 
have  in  the  parabasis  of  the  Knights  and  of  the  Clouds  we  find 
in  fragment  191  of  Antiphanes,  of  which  we  have  already 
spoken,^^'  also  in  Antiphanes  209.  The  nearest  parallels  to  this 
in  Plautus  are  Bacc.  213-215,^^'^  which,  however,  occur  in  dialogue, 
and  such  dramatic  allusions  as  Merc.  3-5^^^  and  the  references  to 
the  running  slave,^^^  most  of  which  occur  in  soliloquies.  The 
general  license  that  allows  a  character  at  any  time  to  step  out 
of  the  play  to  speak  for  the  moment  merely  as  an  actor^"  is  of 
course  not  due  to  the  parabasis  of  Old  Comedy  any  more  than 
to  its  general  freedom  in  that  respect.^^^ 

To  pass  now  to  soliloquies  that  represent  the  old  parabasis  of 
more  general  philosophical  character,  we  find  among  the  comic 
fragments  praise  of  philosophy^^^  and  attacks  on  it.^^^  More 
commonly  we  find  various  particular  philosophical  and  moral 
TowoL  elaborated:  so  the  uncertainty  of  human  life  in  Antiphanes 
204,^^^  the  inconsistency  of  human  nature  in  Philemon  89,  the 
discontent  of  mankind  in  Alexis  141,  their  slavery  to  toil  in 
Philemon  88,  or  to  law  and  custom  in  Philemon  93,  or  to  the 
needless  complications  with  which  they  involve  their  lives  in 
Menander  534.^^-  Some  of  these  fragments  are  very  fine;  most 
moving  of  all,  perhaps,  is  Menander  223,  on  the  theme  of  virtue 

"2£.g.,  Amphitruo's  closing  speech,  Amph.  1144-1146. 

"'See  footnote  121. 

^"    Non  res  sed  actor  mihi  cor  odio  sauciat ; 

etiam  Epidicum,  quam  ego  fabulam  aeque  ac  me  ipsum  amo, — 

nullum  aeque  invitus  specto,  si  agit  Pellio. 
1"  See  footnote  89. 
^"  See  footnote  62. 
^"  E.g.,  Cas.  1006,  Merc.  1007,  Pseud.  388,  720-721,  and  especially  Merc. 

160 

dormientis  spectatores  metuis  ne  ex  somno  excites? 
"*  Besides  the  monologues  cited  in  footnote  136,  cf.  Peace  962  ff. 
1"  E.g.,  iiS&riroTa  104  (which  is  proved  to  be  a  soliloquy  by  lines  1-2) 
ipriuLa  nkv  &ttl  Koi)K  iLKoixrerai 
oifSeh  irapoiv  fiov  tcov  \6yuv  Sav  &p  Xiyu). 
"o£.g.,  Antiphanes  122,  Philemon  71  and  Alexis  36  (directed  particularly 
against  Aristippus). 

"1  Cf.  the  parabasis  of  the  Birds. 

"'  More  examples  are  given  in  Section  VII. 


46 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


unrewarded.  To  emphasize  still  more  the  fact  that  all  such 
soliloquies  are  general  and  topical,  not  dramatic,  the  contrast 
is  eloquent  between  the  fragment  of  Menander  (74)  on  the  text 

Uneasy  lies  the  head  that  wears  a  crown, 

and  the  soliloquy,  ending  with  that  famous  line,  of  the  king  in 
Shakespeare's  Henry  IV,  Part  II,  on  the  same  theme. ^^^ 

The  parabasis  of  Old  Comedy  dealt  perhaps  still  more  often  with 
political  and  social  topics  than  with  such  themes  as  we  have  just 
been  enumerating.  Indeed,  the  discussion  of  philosophy  and 
morality  in  New  Comedy  was  no  doubt  largely  by  way  of  com- 
pensation for  the  abandonment  of  free  personal  invective  and 
the  general  loss  of  interest  in  politics. ^^^  But  social  subjects 
remained  as  available  as  ever  and  gradually  took  up  more  and 
more  attention.  One  general  feature  of  this  type  of  parabasis  is 
likewise  a  common  feature  of  the  comic  or  moralizing  soliloquy 
that  took  its  place,  i.e.,  the  praise  of  one's  self  ^^^  and  the  de- 
nunciation of  those  of  whom  one  disapproves. ^^^  Some  examples 
of  this  type  of  soliloquy  we  have  already  cited. ^^^  In  addition, 
we  may  cite  the  frequent  attacks  in  the  comic  fragments  on  the 
fish-sellers, ^^^  which  are  paralleled  in  Plautus  only  by  Capt. 
813  ff.  Plautus,  however,  has  corresponding  attacks,  perhaps 
inserted  from  Greek  models  for  his  Roman  audience,  on  bakers 
and  butchers. ^^^  The  attack  on  the  bankers  in  Antiphanes  159 
is  represented  in  Plautus  by  two  comic  soliloquies  put  into  the 

^"  Menander  74  begins: 

o)  rptaddXioif 
tL  irXkov  txovcTL  tCov  SlWuv; 
In  Henry  IV,  Part  2,  Act  3,  Scene  i,  the  king  begins: 

How  many  thousands  of  my  poorest  subjects 
Are  at  this  hour  asleep! 
^"  See  Legrand-Loeb,  pp.  23  ff . 
i<»£.g.,  Arist.  Thes.  785. 

♦  Cf .  the  soliloquies  of  cook  and  parasite  listed  in  footnotes  34  and  36. 
^^  Not  to  mention  the  typical  parabasis  of  Aristophanes,  cf.  Birds  1076  ff 
with  the  parasite's  edicts  in  Plaut.  Capt.  803  ff  and  his  threats  in  Cure.  288  flf. 
"'  See  pp.  7-8. 

1"*  Antiphanes  166,  161,  Alexis  16,  125-126,  Diphilus  33,  Xenarchus  7. 
"'  Capt.  807  ff  and  818  ff  respectively;  cf.  also  the  allusions  to  the  grain- 
dealers  in  dialogue  in  Pseud.  188  ff. 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


47 


mouth  of  a  trapezita.^"^^  Thirdly,  to  the  attacks  on  the  hetaerae 
in  the  comic  fragments^^^  correspond  the  soliloquy  in  Plaut.  True. 
22  ff,  and  that  in  Poen.  823  ff  directed  against  lenones.  Again, 
in  Trin.  199  fif  there  is  a  similar  soliloquy  attacking  the  scurrae, 
which  is  probably  due  at  least  partly  to  Roman  influence. 
Finally,  the  laudatio  temporis  acti  in  the  slave's  soliloquy  in 
Trin.  1028  ff,  like  the  conversation  of  the  paedagogus  in  Bacc. 
419  fT,  in  particular  is  strongly  reminiscent  of  the  whole  spirit 
of  Aristophanes  (which  he  indulged  especially  in  the  parabasis), 
which  was  transmitted  as  one  of  the  inheritances  of  Old  Comedy 
to  •New.172 

1'°  Cure.  371  ff  and  Most.  532  ff ;  cf.  also  the  allusions  in  Pers.  434  ff  and 
Pseud.  296  ff. 

"^  Alexis  98,  Epicrates  2-3,  Xenarchus  4. 

'^2  S>ee  E.  Fraenkel,  De  media  et  nova  comoedia  quaestiones  selectae, 
Chapter  III  a,  De  parasitorum  aliorumque  orationibus  quae  ex  antiquae 
comoediae  parabasi  in  mediam  novamque  fluxerunt. 


VII.    OUTSIDE  INFLUENCES  ON  THE  DEVELOPMENT 

OF  SOLILOQUY. 

• 

We  have  seen  that  the  structurally  useful  soliloquy  shows  a 
clear  course  of  development  entirely  due  to  internal,  or  at  any 
rate  purely  dramatic,  influences.  But  it  is  not  difficult  to  per- 
ceive that,  to  aid  the  development  of  the  structurally  useless  types 
of  soliloquy  that  we  have  just  been  discussing,  besides  all  possible 
influence  from  Old  Comedy,  certain  external  influences  were  at 
work  on  New  Comedy.  These  influences  have  been  studied 
exhaustively  in  connection  with  the  elegy  and  the  epigram  and 
their  relation  to  New  Comedy,^^^  so  that  it  will  suffice  to  indicate 
here  how  they  operated  particularly  upon  the  soliloquy. 

We  need  scarcely  say  more  to  emphasize  how  the  soliloquy 
acted  as  a  convenient  vehicle  for  the  influence  exerted  upon 
comedy  by  philosophy.^^^  The  chief  outside  influence  was  of 
course  the  common  rhetoric  that  underlay  all  the  diff^erent  literary 
genres.  Illustrations  are  almost  innumerable;  for  example,  not 
to  mention  the  Characters  of  Theophrastus,  which  may  even 
have  been  based  immediately  on  New  Comedy,  the  soliloquy  in 
Plant.  True.  98  ff  is  a  working-up  in  a  different  genre  of  the 
same  material  that  we  find  in  the  second  mime  of  Herondas. 
This  same  poem,  moreover,  illustrates  the  special  influence  of 
oratory  and  the  rhetoric  of  the  courts,  which,  already  visible  in 
the  dLKavLKol  \oyoL  of  Euripides,  appears  in  New  Comedy  in  the 
opening  scene  of  Menander's  'EinTpewovTes  and  in  the  trial  of 
Love  in  the  soliloquy  in  Plant.  Trin.  223  ff.  Perhaps  the  best 
instance  of  the  operation  of  this  common  rhetoric  is  the  similar 
treatment  of  the  theme  of  love  in  the  various  genres.*^^ 

"'See  Reitzenstein  in  Pauly-Wissowa   on  Epigram  and  Crusius  ibid,  on 

Elegy. 

"*  See  Pohlenz,  Die  hellenistische  Poesie  und  die  Philosophie,  in  XApires  to 

Leo,  pp.  76  ff. 

Leo  gives  examples  of  philosophical  t&jtoi  from  Latin  comedy  in   Der 

Monolog,  pp.  76-78. 

"*  See  footnote  25. 

The  intensive  study  of  this  subject  all  springs  from  Leo,  Plant.  Forsch., 
pp.  126  ff.  E.g.,  see  Holzer,  De  poesie  amatoria  a  comicis  exculta  ab  elegiacis 
imitatione  expressa  (Diss.  Marburg,  1899),  and  Wheeler  in  Class.  Phil.  1910^ 
pp.  440  ff  and  id.  191 1,  pp.  56  ff. 

48 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


49 


So  far  as  specifically  concerns  the  soliloquy,  the  influence  of 
rhetoric  is  manifested  in  various  ways.  In  the  first  place,  we 
find  the  elaborate  working  out  of  a  simile^^®  in  several  soliloquies 
in  Plautus,^"  while  in  Menander  536  the  speaker  complains 
that  he  can  find  no  adequate  simile  for  love.  In  the  second 
place,  many  soliloquies  represent  the  common  rhetorical  types, 
especially  the  kyKoj/jLLov  (latidatio)  and  the  ^6705  {vituperatio)}"^^ 
So  we  find  kyKi^tiia  of  solitude,  of  peace,  and  of  poverty.^^^  To 
compensate  for  the  attacks  on  the  hetaerae  mentioned  above, 
we  find  Philemon  praising  Solon  for  establishing  them  in  the 
state  by  law.^^°  Similar  praise  of  individuals  is  found  in  Alexis's 
commendation  of  Solon  and  Aristonicus  for  laws  against  the 
fish-sellers. ^^^  Still  more  important  is  the  ejKcofjLLov  of  the  simple 
life,  particularly  country  life,^^^  which  sometimes  takes  an  ironical 
form,  as  in  Philemon  98. 

The  soliloquy  in  the  form  of  \l/6yos  likewise  embraces  a  variety 
of  topics.  The  typical  ^6701  of  marriage,  philosophy  and  love 
we  have  already  referred  to.^^  We  find  also  the  ^6705  of  wealth 
and  money,^^^  of  poverty,^*^  of  old  age,^^^  and  of  war.^^^    Other 

^^'  I.e.,  the  type  of  irpoyvupaana  called  avyKpiais  {comparatio). 

"'  E.g.,  Bacc.  925  ff.  Most.  84  ff.  Pseud.  574  ff. 

"*  This  suggests  that  many  soliloquies  that  we  have  not  actually  classified 
as  topical-rhetorical  might  no  doubt,  containing  as  they  do  so  large  a  rhetorical 
element,  be  regarded  as  Trpoyv/ivdafiara  and  classified  accordingly,  just  as 
legitimately  as  the  more  striking  examples  that  we  have  so  classified. 

The  types  of  TrpoyvyLvaatxara  are  conveniently  defined  in  Westermann, 
Geschichte  der  Beredtsamkeit  (Leipzig,  1833),  Vol.  I,  pp.  265-266;  see  also 
G.  Reichel,  Quaestiones  progymnasmaticae  (Diss.  Leipzig,  1909). 

^^*  Menander  466,  Philemon  71,  Philemon  92  respectively. 

"0  Philemon  4;  cf.  Propertius  3,  17  (Muller). 

"^Alexis  125-126.  See  footnote  168.  Cf.  also  the  allusion  to  Solon  in 
Plaut.  Asin.  599. 

^^E.g.,  Philemon  105,  Amphis  17. 

Cf.  Theoc.  7;  Hor.  Epod.  2;  Tib.  I,  i;  I,  10;  2,  i;  2,  3;  Prop.  3,  8;  4,  12 
(Muller).     See  W.  Meyer,  Laudes  inopiae  (Diss.  Gottingen,  1916). 

"3  See  footnotes  22,  23;   159;   25  respectively. 

^^E.g.,  Menander  537  and  Philemon  92;   cf.  Propertius  4,  6  (Muller). 

^"  E.g.,  Menander  404,  from  the  li\6Ku>v,  in  which  the  situation  is  similar  to 
that  in  Plautus's  Aulularia. 

1"  E.g.,  Antiphanes  94,  Menander  552,  555,  Plaut.  Men.  758  ff. 

"^  E.g.,  Apollodorus  Carystius  5. 


50 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


rhetorical  types  represented  in  soliloquies  are  the  controversial 
e.g.,  Plaut.  Trin.  223  ff,  and  the  irapaKkavaldvpov.^^^  Finally, 
we  find  soliloquies  in  which  a  ^670$  begins  with  some  such  common 
rhetorical  tottos  as  the  pereat  qui  primus  sentiment  of  Eubulus  41 
in  regard  to  the  painters  of  Love,^^^  and  of  Menander  154  directed 
against  the  "inventor"  of  marriage,  these  much  like  the  ^6701 
in  condemnation  of  the  greatest  of  all  inventors,  Prometheus,  for 
making  men  inconsistent  and  for  making  women  at  all.^^'^ 

188  E.g.,  Arist.  Eccl.  960  flf  and  Plaut.  Cure.  147-154. 

Cf.  Theoc.  7,  122  ff;   Catul.  67;  Hon  Od.  3,  10;  Prop,  i,  16,  17-42;  2,  17 
(Mijller);  Ov.  Amor,  i,  6;   i,  9,  8  ff. 

189  Cf.  Propertius  3,  3  (Muller). 

"°  Philemon  89  and  Menander  535  respectively. 


VIII.    THE    RELATION    BETWEEN    SOLILOQUY   AND 

METER. 

It  is  futile  to  attempt  any  inference  from  the  meter  of  solilo- 
quies, although  one  is  tempted  to  make  the  effort  because  of  the 
obvious  choral  origin  of  certain  types  of  soliloquy.  We  see, 
as  soon  as  we  begin  to  examine  the  soliloquies  from  the  point  of 
view  of  meter,  that  Plautus  used  all  sorts  of  meters  for  all  sorts 
of  soliloquies.  For  every  soliloquy  representing  a  choral  element, 
whether  from  parabasis,  (TTdaLna  or  7rdpo5os,  that  is  cast  in  the 
form  of  a  monody,  and  thereby  seems  to  reveal  its  descent  from 
the  chorus  in  meter  as  well  as  in  substance,  we  can  find  another 
soliloquy  similar  in  every  respect  save  that  its  meter  is  the  ordi- 
nary trimeter  or  senarius.  If,  therefore,  there  be  any  principles 
determining  the  relation  between  form  and  content  in  Plautine 
comedy — which  is  dubious  at  best, — in  any  case  they  can  be  no 
different  for  monologue  from  whatever  they  may  be  for  dia- 
logue.^^^ 

All  we  can  say  is  that  in  New  Comedy  there  are  soliloquies 
not  only  in  the  ordinary  trimeter,  but  in  the  only  other  meter 
that  we  know  was  used  in  New  Comedy,  i.e.,  trochaic  tetram- 
eter.^^^  fhe  same  is  the  case  for  Middle  Comedy.^^^  We  know 
also  that  Plautus  restored  the  monody  arid  the  duet,  or  lyric 
dialogue,  which  had  been  discarded  in  New  Comedy,  at  least  so 
far  as  it  is  represented  by  extant  fragments,  although  in  several 
fragments  of  Middle  Comedy  we  find  traces  of  its  existence. ^^* 
Whether  he  was  herein  influenced  by  Euripides, ^^^  by  Old  Com- 
edy/®^ or  by  the  Alexandrian  mime,^^^  we  can  not  tell,  and  it 

*"  On  this  general  subject  see  Leo,  Die  plautinischen  Cantica  und  die 
hellenistische  Lyrik  (Berlin,  1897). 

^^  E.g.,  Men.  UeptK.  IIO-II4,  121-195;   'Za/x.  203-210,  337  ff. 

^^  Alexis  98  and  Anaxilas  22  are  in  trochaic  tetrameter. 

^•*  E.g.,  Anaxandrides  41  and  Mnesimachus  4  are  monodies,  while  Epicrates 
II  is  a  duet. 

^^  Monodies  in  Euripides  that  are  also  soliloquies  are,  e.g.,  Troi.  98  ff  and 
Ion  82  ff. 

*••  Arist.  Excl.  938  ff  is  a  soliloquy  in  the  form  of  a  monody,  which  combines 
with  the  asides  to  make  a  duet. 

"^  Cf.  the  song  in  Theoc.  15,  100  ff. 

51 


52 


The  Soliloquy  in  Ancient  Comedy. 


does  not  matter.^®^  For  while  we  find  many  monodies  in  Plautus 
that  are  also  soliloquies,^^^  we  find,  beside  the  lyric  duets,  many 
monodies  that  are  not  soliloquies.  Further  consideration  of 
meter  is  therefore  not  germane  to  this  study. 

"8  Terence  stands  in  respect  to  freedom  of  meter  midway  between  New 
Comedy  and  Plautus. 

"9  Examples  are  Amph.  633  fF,  Capt.  498  ff,  Cas.  937  flF,  Epid.  81  flF,  Men. 
571  ff,   Most.  84  ff,  Pseud.  1246  ff,  Trin.  223  ff. 

Even  these  few  examples  represent  six  different  types  of  soliloquy. 


APPENDIX. 
Table  I:  Soliloquies  in  Plautus. 

In  the  first  column  the  soliloquies  are  denoted  by  line;  in  the 
second  the  speakers  are  indicated.  The  third  column  indicates 
the  content.  Where  a  soliloquy  seemed  clearly  to  contain  more 
than  one  element  but  also  to  belong  predominantly  to  some 
one  class,  the  minor  element  is  indicated  in  parenthesis,  but  the 
soliloquy  is  not  considered  mixed.  It  is  from  the  third  column 
that  the  statistical  summaries  at  the  end  of  the  table  have  been 
drawn  up. 

A  few  very  short,  unimportant  soliloquies  have  not  been 
included  in  the  table. 


Amph. 


Asin. 


Aul. 


153-  292 

Slave 

Exposition  (comedy) 

463-  498 

Mercury 

Announcement 

633-  653 

Alcumena 

Character  (comment) 

861-  881 

Jupiter    . 

Announcement 

882-  890 

Alcumena 

Character 

974-  983 

Jupiter 

Comment 

984-1005 

Mercury 

Comedy  (announcement) 

I 009-1 020 

Amphitruo 

Development 

I 053-1 075 

Slave 

t( 

249-  266 

n 

Deliberation 

67-    78 

(< 

Exposition 

105-  119 

Senex 

Character 

371-  389 

<< 

i( 

406-  414 

Cook 

Comedy 

460-  474 

Senex 

Character 

475-  535 

<( 

Moralizing 

580-  586 

<( 

Announcement 

587-  607 

Slave 

Moralizing;  development 

608-  615 

Senex 

Development 

53 


54 


Appendix. 


Bacc. 


Capt. 


Cas. 


6i6-  623 
661-  666 
667-  676 
677-  681 
701-  712 
713-  726 

170-  177 

349-  367 
368-  384 

385-  404 

500-  525 
612-  624 
649-  666 
761-  769 
925-  978 
1076-1086 
1087-1103 

69-  109 
461-  497 
498-  515 
516-  531 
768-  780 
781-  789 
790-  828 
901-  908 
909-  921 


217- 

424- 
502- 

531- 
549- 
558- 
563- 
759- 
875- 
937- 


227 
436 

514 

538 

557 
562 

573 

779 
891 

960 


Slave 


(I 


Senex 
Slave 


<( 


Senex 


Slave 

Paedag. 

Adulesc. 

(( 

«( 

Slave 

it 

(( 
Senex 


Parasite 

ii 

Senex 

Slave 

Parasite 

Senex 

Parasite 

Parasite 

Puer 

Senex 
Slave 

Matrona 
Senex 
Matrona 
Senex 

Slave 

it 

Senex 


Announcement 

Comment 

Announcement 


ti 


Development 
Comedy 

Exposition 
Comment 

Announcement  (comment) 
Moralizing  (comment) 
Announcement;  comment 
Comment 


it 


Announcement 

Topical-rhetorical 

Comment 

(development) 


II 


Exposition;  comedy 

Comedy 

Development 

Comment 

Comedy  (announcement) 

Comment 

Comedy 


II 


<i 


Comment 


Deve 


opment 


it 


Comment 


Cist. 


Cure. 


Epid. 


Men. 


Merc. 


Appendix. 

120-  148 

Lena 

Exposition 

203-  228 

Adulesc. 

Comment 

536-  542 

Slave 

ii 

671-  703 

11 

Comedy 

96-  109 

Lena 

i< 

216-  222 

Leno 

Comment 

280-  298 

Parasite 

Comedy 

371-  383 

Trapezita 

n 

462-  486 

Choragus 

Anomalous 

591-  598 

Parasite 

Development 

679-  686 

Leno 

II 

81-  103 

Slave 

Exposition ;  deliberation 

158-  165 

11 

Announcement 

306-  319 

II 

ti 

382-  395 

Senex 

Comment 

517-  525 

li 

ii 

526-  536 

Mulier 

(exposition) 

77-  109 

Parasite 

Comedy 

446-  465 

II 

;  development 

571-  601 

Adulesc. 

Moralizing;  development 

753-  774 

Senex 

Development  (moralizing) 

882-  888 

it 

II 

899-  908 

Adulesc. 

11 

957-  965 

II 

Comment 

966-  989 

Slave 

Moralizing 

039-1049 

Adulesc. 

Comment 

I-  no 

ii 

Prologue 

III-  129 

Slave 

Comedy 

225-  271 

Senex 

Anomalous  (development) 

328-  334 

It 

Deliberation 

335-  363 

Adulesc. 

Development 

544-  561 

Senex 

Comment  (moralizing) 

588-  600 

Adulesc. 

It 

661-  666 

a 

Announcement 

55 


56 


Mil. 


Most. 


Pers. 


Appendix. 

667-  671 

Matrona 

Development 

692-  699 

Senex 

(t 

700-  704 

Matrona 

Comment 

792-  799 

Senex 

Development 

817-  829 

Slave 

Moralizing 

830-  863 

2  adul. 

Anomalous  (announcement 
and  development) 

79-  155 

Slave 

Prologue 

200-  215 

Senex 

Conunent 

259-  271 

Slave 

Deliberation 

305-  312 

(( 

Development 

345-  353 

(( 

ii 

586-  595 

Adulesc. 

Comment 

867-  873 

Slave 

«< 

1284-1295 

Adulesc. 

(< 

84-  156 

<t 

Topical-rhetorical 

348-  362 

Slave 

Exposition;  comedy 

431-  444 

Senex 

Development 

536-  546 

Slave 

<( 

690-  710 

Senex 

Comedy 

775-  1^^ 

Slave 

Comment 

858-  884 

(( 

Moralizing 

993-  998 

Senex 

Comment 

1041-1061 

Slave 

Development 

1122-1127 

Adulesc. 

(( 

I-      6 

Slave 

Exposition 

7-     12 

<i 

Comment 

53-    80 

Parasite 

Comedy 

251-  271 

Slave 

Development  (announce- 
ment) 

449-  457 

it 

Comment  (moralizing) 

470-  479 

Leno 

(( 

753-  762 

Slave 

**          (development) 

777-  787 

Leno 

It 

Poen. 


Pseud. 


Rud. 


Appendix.                                     57 

449-  469 

Leno 

Comedy 

817-  822 

Slave 

Comment 

823-  844 

(( 

;  moralizing 

917-  929 

Slave 

Comment 

930-  949 

Senex 

Anomalous 

956-  9^0 

(( 

Development 

1280-1291 

Miles 

(( 

394-  408 

Slave 

Comment 

562-  573 

(( 

it 

574-  593 

(( 

(topical-rhetorical) 

667-  691 

(( 

;  moralizing 

758-  766 

(< 

ti 

767-  1^1 

Puer 

ft 

892-  904 

Leno 

(f 

905-  910 

Slave 

(< 

I 01 7-1 036 

(( 

(( 

I 052-1 062 

Leno 

(( 

1103-1123 

Slave 

Moralizing;  development 

1238-1245 

Senex 

Announcement 

1246-1283 

Slave 

Comedy 

83-     88 

t( 

Exposition 

185-  219 

Mulier 

u 

220-  227 

Slave 

« 

306-  309 

(< 

C( 

24-  330 

n 

tt 

403-  413 

n 

Comment 

440-  457 

11 

Announcement 

458-  484 

n 

Comedy 

485-  491 

Leno 

Comment 

559-  562 

Slave 

Development 

584-  592 

Senex 

Comment 

593-  612 

(( 

Anomalous 

615-  626 

Slave 

Development 

886-  891 

Senex 

Comment 

58 


Stich. 


Trin. 


True. 


Appendix. 

892-  905 

Senex 

Development  (comment) 

906-  937 

Slave 

;  character; 
comedy;  moralizing 

I I 84-1 190 

it 

Comment 

1191-1204 

Senex 

(( 

1258-1264 

(( 

Moralizing 

1281-1287 

Leno 

Development 

75-    87 

Senex 

Deliberation 

155-  233 

Parasite 

Comedy 

274-  308 

Puer 

(( 

454-  463 

Parasite 

Comment 

497-  504 

(( 

a 

632-  640 

«( 

Comedy 

641-  648 

Slave 

Development 

649-  654 

i( 

«< 

673-  682 

(( 

(( 

23-    38 

Senex 

Moralizing 

199-  222 

(< 

44 

223-  275 

Adulescens 

Topical-rhetorical ;    delibera- 
tion; character;  moralizing 

392-  399 

Senex 

Comment 

591-  601 

Slave 

(i 

718-  728 

It 

Comedy  (comment) 

820-  842 

Senex 

Comment 

843-  867 

Sycophant 

Development 

998-1007 

Senex 

Comment 

I 008-1 059 

Slave 

Comedy;  moralizing 

1115-1124 

Adulescens 

Comment 

22-    94 

<i 

Exposition;  moralizing 

98-  112 

Slave 

Moralizing 

209    254 

n 

(comment) 

315-  321 

t( 

Comment 

335-  351 

Adulescens 

(t 

434-  447 

(4 

"          ;  announcement 

Appendix. 


59 


448-  475 
482-  498 

553-  574 
633-  644 

645-  662 

699-  710 


Meretrix 

Miles 

Slave 

Miles 

Adulescens 


Moralizing  (comment) 

(development) 
Comment 


<< 


it 


Development 
Comment 


60 


Appendix. 


I 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9         lo 

II 

12 

%  of 

Play 

Pro. 

Exp. 
I 

Dev. 
2 

Ann.i 

2 

Cmt. 
I 

Del. 

Cha. 
2 

Mor. 

Cmd.  T  -r. 

Mix. 

Ano. 

Tot. 
9 

lines. 

Amph 

I 

26% 

Asin 

I 

I 

2% 

Aul 

I 

2 

4 

I 

3 

I 

2 

I 

15 

26% 

Bacc 

I 

2 

5 

I 

I 

I 

II 

i8% 

Capt 

I 

2 

5 

I 

9 

19% 

Cas 

2 

8 

10 

13% 

Cist 

I 

2 

I 

4 

12% 

Cure 

2 

I 

3 

I 

7 

13% 

Epid 

2 

3 

I 

6 

12% 

Men 

3 

2 

I 

2 

9 

14% 

Merc 

I 

4 

I 

3 

I 

I 

2 

14 

31% 

Mil 

I 

2 

4 

Z 

8 

12% 

Most 

4 

2 

I 

I 

I 

10 

17% 

Pers 

I 

I 

5 

8 

12% 

Poen 

2 

2 

I 

I 

7 

7% 

Pseud 

I 

9 

2 

13 

i6% 

Rud 

S 

4 

I 

6 

I 

I 

I 

20 

i8% 

Stich 

3 

2 

I 

3 

9 

23% 

Trin 

I 

5 

2 

I 

2 

II 

20% 

True 

2 

10 

I 
34 

13 

5 
68 

4 

S 

4 

12 

23 

2 

2 

15 

5 

12 

193 

28% 

Total 

17% 

QiimTncirv    N'ppf*QQ5irv 

70 

Useful 

9 

Not  useful 

114 

193 

Character: 

Senex 

10 

4 

4 

I 

19 

lO 

2 

3 

4 
I 

2 

5 

44 

21 

25% 

Adulescens  . 

11% 

Slave 

8 

15 

I 

8 

26 
2 

2 

S 

8 
9 

8 

2 

80 
14 

44% 

Parasite .... 

7% 

Mulier . 

I 

I 

I 

2 

4 
6 

2 

8 
9 

2 
I 
I 

4% 

Leno 

5% 

Lena 

Cook 

Trapezita  . . 

Miles 

10 

33 

13 

I 

68 

4 

5 

I 
I 

12 

24 

15 

3 

I 

Meretrix.  .  . 

Total 

!i84 

1         1         1 

Prnlocuf*                            

2 

2 

Anomaloim                        

5 

193 

Appendix. 


6i 


And. 


Table  II:  Soliloquies  in  Terence. 

2o6-  228  Slave  Exposition 

236-  264  Adulescens  Deliberation  (comment) 

599-  604  Slave  Comment 

625-  641  Adulescens  Moralizing 


Heaut. 


Eun. 


Phor. 


167-  173 

Senex 

Comment. 

213-  229 

Adulescens 

<t 

230-  234 

it 

tt 

410-  419 

Senex 

<< 

420-  425 

(( 

Character 

503-  507 

(( 

Comment 

668-  678 

Slave 

Deliberation 

749-  756 

Senex 

Comment 

805-  812 

Adulescens 

(( 

197-  206 

Meretrix 

Exposition 

225-  231 

Slave 

Comment 

232-  264 

Parasite 

Comedy 

292-  302 

Adulescens 

Development 

507-  529 

<( 

n 

539-  548 

(< 

«« 

549-  556 

li 

Comment 

615-  628 

Slave 

Development 

629-  640 

Adulescens 

<i 

840-  847 

<< 

<< 

923-  940 

Slave 

Comment  (moralizing) 

35-    50 

(< 

Exposition 

179-  190 

(i 

Comment 

231-  246 

Senex 

(( 

465-  470 

Adulescens 

i( 

591-  599 

Slave 

Development 

778-  783 

<t 

Comment  (announcement) 

820-  828     Adulescens 
829-  832     Parasite 
884-  893 


(( 


Development 


n 


62 

Appendix. 

Hec. 

274- 

279 

Matrona 

Character 

327- 

335 

Slave 

Developm 

361- 

414 

Adulescens 

(t 

444- 

449 

ti 

Comment 

510- 

515 

Senex 

n 

516- 

520 

Matrona 

<< 

566- 

576 

(t 

Developm 

799- 

806 

Slave 

i( 

816- 

840 

Meretrix 

it 

Add. 


26-    77    Senex 


II 


141- 

154 

196- 

208 

Leno 

254- 

259 

Adulescens 

299 

320 

Slave 

355- 

360 

Senex 

610- 

633 

Adulescens 

713- 

718 

Senex 

757- 

762 

II 

855- 

881 

i< 

Exposition;  moralizing; 

character 
Comment 


<i 


It 


Development 

Comment 

Development 


li 


Comment 

Moralizing;  comment; 
announcement 


I 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

II 

12 

%of 

Play 

Pro. 

Exp. 

Dev. 

Ann. 

Cmt. 
I 

Del. 
I 

Cha. 

Mor. 

I 

Cmd. 

T— r 

Mix. 

Ano. 

Tot. 
4 

lines. 

And 

I 

8% 

Heaut 

7 

I 

I 

9 

7% 

Eun 

I 

6 

3 

I 

II 

14% 

Phor 

I 

3 

5 

9 

9% 

Hec 

S 

3 

I 

9 

15% 

Adel 

3 

17 

0 

5 
24 

2 

2 

I 

I 

0 

2 
2 

0 

10 

52 

18% 

Total 

0 

3 

12% 

( 

Mimmarv  Npcpssarv. 

22 

Useful 

4 

Not  useful.  . 

26 

52 

Appendix. 


63 


Character: 

Senex 

Adulescens 
Slave  

Parasite . . . 
Mulier.  .  ,  . 

Leno 

Miles 

Total 


I 

7 
5 

2 

I 


17 


10 

8 
4 


I 
I 


24 


14 
17 
12 

3 
3 

I 
2 


52 


27% 
33% 
23% 

6% 
6% 

2% 


Table  III:  Soliloquies  in  Menander. 


Comment 


<< 


'Ettit.         165-  167     Slave 
199-  201         " 
202-  212 
214-  224 
218-  225 

340-  365 
366  ff 

391  ff 
Fab.  Inc.  II  1-15* 

36  ff 
410  ff 

566* 

457-  486 
487  ff 

522-  537 

UepLK.  52-     60 

64-     70 

iio-  114 

121-   125 
208  ff 
276  ff 
407-  411 

*  To  get  the  benefit  of  the  evidence  they  supply,  we  have  left  these  frag- 
ments in  the  table  at  the  places  where  Capps  (Four  Plays  of  Menander) 
incorporated  them  into  his  text,  though  he  is  not  followed  therein  by  Korte. 
We  have  also  accepted  Capps's  assignment  of  characters. 


Frag. 


i( 

Development 

Meretrix 

ti 

Slave 

Deliberation 

(( 

Comment;  character 

Senex 

Fragmentary: 
nient? 

=  develop- 

Cook 

Fragmentary: 

—  comment? 

Senex 

Development 

Slave 

Moralizing 

Senex 

Fragmentary: 
ment? 

=  announce- 

Slave 

Development 
ti 

Adulescens 

Character 

Senex 

Comment 

Slave 

Development 

(( 

Comment 

Adulescens 

Character 

n 

Deliberation 

Miles 

Comment 

Adulescens 

Development 

Miles 

Comment 

64 

Xan. 


Appendix. 


I-    64 

65-    67 

83-     86 

no-  141 

145-  153 
184-  191 
204-  211 
219-  222 
269-  270 
271-  295 
296-  312 

337  ff 


Senex 


t( 


it 


It 


Cook 
Senex 


Development 

Comment 

Character 

*'  ;  deliberation 

Comment 


i( 


it 


(< 


(( 


Development 
Comment 


<( 


Adulescens 

Slave 

Adulescens 


Announcement 

Comment 

Deliberation 


Play 

3 
Dev. 

4 
Ann. 

S 

Cmt. 

6 
Del. 

7 
Cha. 

I 
I 

I 

8 
Mor. 

I 

I 

I 
I 

II 
Mix. 

I 

I 

2 

I 

I 

2 

(Fr- 
ag.) 

(3) 
(3) 

Tot. 

15 

7 

12 

34 

12 

6 

II 

I 
2 
2 

34 

%of 
lines. 

'EiriT 

UepiK 

2a/A 

5+i?=6 
2 

2 

I? 

I 

3+I?=4 

3 

6 

I 

I 
I 

30% 

15% 
50% 

Total 

9+i?=io 

I+I?=2 

I2+I?=I3 

3        3 

Character: 
Senex .... 
Adul 

.^  Slave 

Meret. . .  . 
Cook. . . . 
Miles .... 

3+i?=4 
I 

4 
I 

I? 
I 

5 
4 

I+I?«2 

2 

2 
I 

I 
2 

i 

35% 
18% 

50% 

Total 

9+i?=io 

I+I?=2 

12+1?  =13 

3         3 

Summary:  Ne 

Us 
N< 

12 

6 

16 

34 

cea»<ti  y 

pf„l                                         

■kf     IIDfiflll                                                                                - 

Jl    USCiUl  .    . 

Table  IV:  Soliloquies  in  Aristophanes. 


Achar. 
Clouds 
Lys. 


I-    39  Dicaeopolis 

480-  489 

I-     79  Strepsiades 

627-  632  Socrates 

I-      4  Lysistrata 

973-  979  Cinesias 


Exposition 

Comment 

Exposition 

Comment 

Exposition 

Comment 


Appendix. 


65 


Eccl. 


I-  29  Praxagora 

311-  326  Blepyrus 

746-  752  &VVP 

877—  883  ypavs 

938-  948  veavLas 


Exposition 

Development 

Deliberation 

Development 

Comment 


Plut. 


I-     17     Carion 
802-  822 


n 


Exposition 
Development 


Play. 

2 
Exp. 

3 
Dev. 

5 
Cmt. 

6 
Del. 

Total. 

Achar 

2 

I 

I 
I 
I 

I 

I 

2 

2 

Clouds 

Lys 

Eccl 

2 

5 

Plut 

• 

2 

Total 

5 

3 

4 

I 

13 

